MOSCOW, April 30. /TASS/. Over 125,000 tourists may visit Crimea for May holidays, which is 9,000 more than in the same period in 2014, Crimean Tourism Minister Yelena Yurchenko said Thursday.
"Last year, 116,000 people spent their holidays in Crimea in the same period," Yurchenko said.
She said tourists started arriving in Crimea before the May holidays and will be there until May 10-12.
Citing Crimean Tourism Ministry statistics, Yurchenko said 329,000 people had vacationed at the republic's recreation facilities since the start of the year.
Experts forecast that a record number of people will visit Crimea in 2015.
Deputy chief of the Russian Union of Travel Industry Yury Barzykin said Crimea is becoming a more popular holiday destination among Russians.
"Last year, the peninsula was visited by slightly less than 4 million tourists, and this year, there could be more than 5 million," Barzykin said.
Svetlana Dudukchyan, the director of a travel firm in the city of Sochi, said residents of her city and its surrounding coastal area also actively travel to Crimea.
Dudukchyan said there are a few reasons for such activity, in particular transport accessibility thanks to new flights with cheap tickets and low prices for rooms in Crimean hotels.