Prospects for the development of resorts of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast under war conditions and post war recovery

Abstract

Before 2022 the resort sector of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast provided a substantial share of the gross regional product of the coastal regions and generated a stable flow of domestic and foreign visitors. The full scale war confronted the regional resort sector with the need for a fundamental revision of its development model, since the pre war structure of demand and sources of investment became largely unavailable. The purpose of the article is to identify prospective directions for the development of the resorts of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast, taking into account world experience of recovering tourist destinations after wars and armed conflicts. The study applies comparative, cartographic and scenario methods of analysis, the information base included strategic documents on tourism and regional development in Ukraine, damage and recovery needs assessments, and international scholarly literature on crisis management in tourism. It is established that world experience of post conflict recovery of resort destinations, in particular the Bosnian phenomenon of phoenix tourism, confirms the possibility of a relatively rapid return of tourist demand provided there is consistent rebuilding of security infrastructure and a deliberate rebranding of the destination. Three scenarios for the development of the resorts of the Black Sea coast up to 2030 are identified, namely an inertial scenario, a rehabilitation scenario and an innovative scenario, and the rehabilitation scenario is substantiated as the most realistic for the near term post war period.