"The first group of tourists from the United Kingdom has visited Crimea, but we did not advertise their visit not to create additional problems for them in their homeland. They had military and historical route, related to the Crimean war. The tourists have left Crimea to date," Chernyak said.
According to the information provided by the Crimean Tourism Ministry, a total of 475,200 tourists came to the peninsula during the first four months of 2017. This was in spite of the fact that Western sanctions remain imposed over Russia's alleged meddling in the Ukrainian conflict, something which Moscow has repeatedly refuted.
The aforementioned figure demonstrates a 4.4 percent increase in tourist flow compared to the same period in 2016, the Tourism Ministry’s data sheet noted without specifying the portion of foreign visitors. However, Chernyak did mention on May 12, that health tourists hailing from 64 countries across the globe visited the peninsula in 2016.
