Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Borys Kolesnikov has said that the owners of Ukrainian hotels should understand the purchasing power of European fans who will come to the country during the Euro 2012 European Football Championship.
"We cannot sell for EUR 2,000 something that cost EUR 200 yesterday. If we take the residents of the Soviet Union and France 25 years ago, the difference in living standards is enormous. Therefore, French tourists who came to Moscow and St. Petersburg seemed fabulously rich people. Hotel owners should realize that ordinary people will come to our country, the same workers from French car plants, electric companies, and managers. And they cannot pay that kind of money. I think that we will stabilize the situation and set proper market prices, and the main thing now is not to give in to this panic, and not to buy anything from speculators," he said during a dialog with French journalists in Donetsk during his visit to the Donbas Arena stadium.
Kolesnikov noted that the state had completely exempted the hotel business from the profit tax and that the respective rate would be zero at least in the next five years.
"I have already said that greed causes poverty. It should be realized that the value of a full complex is important for foreign tourists. Today we are opening our skies, and it turns out that it’s cheaper to travel to three matches with France on charter flights rather than live in Ukraine for ten days. Hotels understand that they will lose all revenues. It takes three hours to fly from Paris to Donetsk, where the French team will play three matches. Therefore, I think that the situation will stabilize by the end of April," FC Shakhtar Donetsk’s press service quoted Kolesnikov as saying.
