WARSAW, Poland : Julie, who preferred not to give her full name, booked a group of trips to Warsaw last year, has now visited Warsaw four times in six weeks, and admits to having fallen for the city.
She said it is a fascinating place with so much history.
Poland has a border with Ukraine, and not every potential traveler feels the same way. Pictures of refugees crossing the border had a devastating effect on Poland's travel industry.
At the end of March, Poland's deputy minister for sport and tourism, Andrzej Gut-Mostowy, told the media that cancellations from foreign visitors were up between 30 and 40 percent due to the Ukraine war.
This trend can be seen throughout Eastern Europe. Last Night of Freedom, the company that arranges bachelor and bachelorette parties throughout Europe, saw bookings to Krakow collapse by 60 percent in the summer of 2022.
Matt Mavir, the founder of the company, said, "I think when the invasion began, people were hearing about bombs close to the border, and now they have that image in their head," he told CNN.
Poland is not the only country affected by the war. Last Night of Freedom said that its bookings to Budapest, Hungary fell 45 percent and to Riga, Latvia fell 39 percent.
The Hungarian Tourism Agency's figures show a 37 percent drop in tourists to the country in the first six months of 2022, compared to the year before 2019, while Slovakia's tourist board said foreign visitor numbers fell by 49 percent from January to May, compared to 2019.
The situation is affecting countries that do not have a border with Ukraine. Half of the 350 cruise ships scheduled to visit Tallinn in 2022 have been canceled due to the war, according to the director of the Estonian Tourist Board, Liina Maria Lepik.
There is a better news. There have been increases in tourist numbers in two countries in the region. Moldova, which borders Ukraine, saw more foreign visitors in the first quarter of 2022 than pre-pandemic, from 31,000 non-resident tourists in 2019 to 36,100 in 2022, while Lithuania, which borders Ukraine, saw a surge in foreign visitors in the first quarter of 2022, from 31,000 non-resident tourists in 2019 to 36,100 in 2022.
The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast, which borders Russian allies Belarus and the Russian exclave of Belarus, said by June visitor numbers were at 88 percent of the 2019 levels.