The tourism business in occupied Crimea suffered losses of more than 4 billion rubles in the first six months of 2026—almost twice as much as during the same period last year. This is evidenced by data from Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), analyzed by Verstka, The Moscow Times reports, according to UNN.
Details
The industry’s losses increased by 95.7%, with the largest losses recorded in May—about 850 million rubles. At the same time, the tourism sector’s profit fell 2.5-fold, to approximately 530 million rubles, compared with nearly 1.3 billion a year earlier.
In July, the volume of paid services provided by tour operators in Crimea was almost 55% lower than last year, while in occupied Sevastopol the decline was about 73%.
About 1 million trips canceled
According to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, by the end of July tourists had canceled about 1 million trips to Crimea and Sevastopol. The cost of the canceled bookings was estimated at 20–25 billion rubles, of which 5–7 billion was attributable to tour operators.
Amid the problems in the tourism industry, the Russian government allocated more than 4.3 billion rubles to support it in July. At the end of August, businesses were also granted deferrals for paying insurance contributions, and on-site tax inspections were suspended.
The occupation authorities in Crimea have already stated that these measures are insufficient and announced a bill on additional support for the tourism industry. One of the main problems cited is refunding tourists who canceled trips to the peninsula that they had previously booked.