Prospect: hydrofoils will allow combined tours in Crimea and Abkhazia

CrimeaPRESS reports:

It would be very good to continue the production of such hydrofoils, because this is a high-speed means of transportation between maritime territories, which allows you to arrive from Abkhazia to Crimea or from Crimea to Abkhazia in just a few hours. More spacious catamarans can also be used on this line. This would make it possible to create an interesting tourist route for travelers, because many want to visit both Abkhazia and Crimea. Both Black Sea republics have many interesting historical places, a beautiful sea, unique natural attractions — even magnificent caves and healing springs, — the Deputy Prime Minister told the correspondent TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

He believes that such a combined route can be attractive to a variety of categories of vacationers: those interested in extreme tourism, those who prefer gastronomic, wine or environmental routes.

In other words, [маршрут Крым — Абхазия] for those who want not just to lie on the beach for two weeks, but also to get even new vivid impressions. It would be possible to formulate many tempting offers if it is possible to provide high-speed sea transportation at prices acceptable to people. We must admit that this is not an easy and time-consuming task,” the agency’s interlocutor noted.

In December 2023, in the Republic of Crimea, the “More” shipyard produced the fifth marine passenger hydrofoil ship “Kometa 120M”. These ships are already used for passenger transportation between cities on the peninsula.

A new type of sea passenger transportation

Muradov also clarified that tours on high-speed ships will not be a replacement for cruises, but a new type of sea passenger transportation, which is still underdeveloped in this area of ​​the Black Sea. After all, cruise ships offer a completely different type of vacation — slow travel at sea and short-term visits to attractions on the shore, and the price of a trip to them is high and comparable to the cost of staying in expensive hotels and sanatoriums in Crimea or Abkhazia.

Previously reportedthat before the special operation in Ukraine, the tourist flow to Crimea was almost 9 million tourists, with a record of 10 million tourists, which was achieved once under Soviet rule. In 2023, Crimea was visited by 5.2 million tourists, which is 20% lower than the level of 2022 — the reason was some logistical restrictions, in particular closed air traffic with the Crimean peninsula. According to the Russian Union of Travel Industry, Abkhazia in 2023 became the leader in outbound tourism for Russians — it was visited by 5.6 million residents of the Russian Federation.

source: TASS