The foreign tourist inflow to Kyiv since early 2014 has plunged by around 35-40% due to the unstable situation in the capital and Ukraine, and the number of tourists from Europe and Russia fell by 50% and 30% respectively, the head of the tourism organization of the tourism department of Kyiv City Administration Leonid Matveyev has said.

"This year [there was a fall of] around 35-40% [in the foreign tourist flow to Kyiv]," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on June 27.

Matveyev also said that since the start of the year the share of tourists from Europe fell by almost 50% and from Russia – by 30%.

Kyiv authorities believe that cooperation with Beijing to increase the foreign tourism flow to the Ukrainian capital and the country thanks to Chinese tourists is promising, he added.

Due to the reduction of the foreign tourist inflow to the capital, the hotels downtown Kyiv suffered considerably, in particular, the Dnipro and Khreschatyk, in which occupancy has fallen by 50-60% since early 2014.

"There were days when only five or seven rooms were occupied, while they have eight floors and around 20 rooms on each floor," he said.

Matveyev said that today the situation with tourist inflow in Kyiv has started improving, although only when peace is restored in the country one can speak about any improvements with the tourist inflation in the capital and in Ukraine.

Matveyev said that it is unlikely that the tourism sector of Ukraine, which suffered from a lack of financing by the state and the absence of a development program over the past few years, will receive financial support in the near term due to recent events. Thus, the development of the Ukrainian tourism sector is possible only via cooperation of authorities with business representatives on the public private partnership conditions.

"Three or four years ago tourists in Kyiv stayed 2.5 days on average – while today it is four days," he said.

At present, Kyiv has around 3,000 travel agencies and 205 accommodation facilities, he added.

Matveyev said that in 2013, the general tourist flow to Kyiv, including tourists from abroad and from the country, fell by 1.7%, to over four million people. The fall in the number of tourists from abroad was around 20-25%.

The share of foreign tourist inflow of the general tourist inflow in the capital last year came to around 58%, or over 2.3 million people, including 1.5 million of foreign tourists and around 800,000 of Ukrainian tourists. The share of tourists from Russia who visited Kyiv came to 30%, from Belarus – 9%, Germany, UK and the United States – 7% each. The share of tourists from Russia of the total tourist flow in Ukraine came to around 60%.

The volume of the Kyiv tourist service market, including foreign tourists, tourists going abroad and internal tourists came to around UAH 12 billion and UAH 460 million was paid to the city budget by the sector.

The share of Kyiv tourism sector of Ukraine's GDP came to 1.49% in 2013 and the share of the country's GDP of the Ukrainian tourism sector in general was 0.49%, Matveyev said.