 One of the first things to digest in 2007 will be the abundance of top quality hotels, the lack of which in the past has affected Ukraine's ability to vie for some of the larger regional and international meetings, conventions and other similar events.
In recent years, the Premier Palace has had the luxury field pretty much to itself, but that will change over the next few months with at least three additional top-rank or near top-rank hotels either open or nearing opening.
With the question of good to outstanding hotel accommodations in the process of getting solved, a number of other important questions come to mind.
First, there is the issue of a convention center of adequate capacity to handle the really high-powered events. Both the major existing facilities, Palace Ukraine and Sports Palace, could be valuable adjuncts, but without question a new, state-of-the-art and much higher capacity convention center is going to be a necessity if really major events are to be attracted to Kyiv.
Let's take as an example the International AIDS Conference, an event that was held in Thailand in 2004, in Toronto in 2006 and is headed for Mexico City in 2008. This is a very prestigious event that brings over 25,000 participants from all parts of the world.
Perhaps it's best to let Toronto tell you how the event affected that city, as reported in an official publication: The preliminary economic impact statement indicates that the AIDS Conference was a success, creating an estimated $21 million in new economic activity in Ontario, with $15.5 million of it generated in the host city. The conference also generated more that $1 million in wages and salaries, and supported nearly 400 jobs. More than 26,000 attendees were at the conference, representing 186 countries, with the majority having traveled overseas. Survey statistics also show that more than 2,300 journalists from 92 countries attended, making Toronto international front-page news for nearly two straight weeks while promoting the city as a global leader on the AIDS epidemic issue.
This is the kind of event that Kyiv could be vying for as early as 2010, but to do so a lot of things have to happen.
Probably the first thing that has to happen is that the city, regional and national governments have to get their heads together to establish and finance a professionally led, non-political and efficient convention authority. That alone could take years here, and the efforts need to have started several yesterdays ago.
Some would argue that there are already mechanisms in place to do this, but my argument would be that the current structures and level of effort are totally inadequate to do what is needed.
A successful convention authority always needs years of effort - sometimes as much as a decade - to do what must be done to attract the biggest and the best conventions and meetings.
There are many, many others just as prestigious and profitable as the one mentioned above, but it is a good example - and one that should be on Ukraine's list of possibles. If for no other reason, Ukraine should consider this as a good target for attraction since the best figures available suggest that over 1.25 percent of the nation's population is HIV-positive. Bringing such a meeting here might put much greater emphasis on Ukraine's already commendable efforts in combating this disease of concern to the entire world.
One of the most common of human traits is an inclination to want to meet others of the same profession, sport, religion, technology or obsession to socialize and learn what your colleagues from other parts of the world are getting up to. Taking advantage of this tendency should become a major local and national project.
It is entirely within the realm of the possible that Kyiv, a city of about 2.7 million, could attract
a number of additional visitors equal to its own population on an annual basis - when, and if it gets its act together.
To do this requires leadership, vision, financing, imagination - and an immense amount of hard and intelligent work. If such an effort is successful, Kyiv would be the biggest winner, but the ripples would be felt all over the country.
The essentials today are a few dedicated leaders who are willing to work, submerge their own personal interests for the good of all and dedicate the next few years to making it happen.
To close, a personal note
When I began writing this column a few months ago, one of my old journalistic colleagues waggishly suggested that it was the first successful ear transplant in Ukrainian history. Of course, he was referring to the fact that I had written a weekly political column with the same title some years back for another English-language publication.
Given the space problems that occur with any publication, I've opted most of the time to drop the Ear in favor or articles or features that I considered more important or time-sensitive. During 2007, I hope we'll be able to pen the Ear on
a regular monthly basis while still not sacrificing space needed for other pieces.
Be that as it may, this is 2007, a year that is likely to bring a wide range of new and old ideas worth writing about for our cadre of freelancers, our regulars and yours truly.
[Response to The Ear is not only welcome, but also strongly solicited. Please send e-mail to: jim.davis@twg.com.ua. For those who prefer snail mail, send to: PO Box 221, Kyiv 03150 Ukraine.]
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