A the end of May, in Istanbul, Turkey, the United States
Trade and Development Agency (TDA) organized a conference
entitled "Destination Eurasia: Building Infrastructure
for Tourism". The primary goal of the conference was to
link United States-based project developers and financiers
with entrepreneurs in the countries of the Eurasian region
to stimulate the growth of the potentially lucrative tourism
market in the area. The private sector attendees were
accompanied by ministers of tourism as well as representatives
of the U.S. government. These included ambassadors from
many of the nations in the Eurasia group along with their
senior commercial officers, as well as a wide variety
of U.S. Department of Commerce and State Department employees,
who are involved in these markets.
Jorge Zukoski, President of the AmCham, attended the
conference as a member of the Ukrainian delegation, which
was lead by Mr. Valerii Tsybukh, Head of the National
Tourism Administration (NTA). In attendance as well were
AmCham members Mr. Walter Prochorenko, the General Director
of the Golden Gate Golf Club, as well as Mr. Richard Shepard,
the Regional Director of the Eurasia Foundation. Mr. Shepard
opened the conference as a participant in the Tourism
Devezlopment Workshop, which was moderated by Frank Carrico,
the Senior U.S. Foreign Commercial Service Officer for
Ukraine. Later in the conference, Mr. Prochorenko took
the floor to discuss the development of the Golden Gate
Golf Club. On behalf of the newly-formed Travel and Tourism
Committee of the AmCham, Jorge Zukoski discussed tourism
development issues with many interested parties who would
like to enter the Ukrainian market by developing hotels
and other tourism support infrastructure.
The conference ended with a speech from Ambassador William
Taylor, the U.S. State Department's coordinator for U.S.
Assistance to Europe and Eurasia. The conference was a
resounding success, and many valuable con tacts were made
and deals discussed that should bring additional positive
development and investment into the tourism sector in
Ukraine.
