How to make tourism a real factor of regional development?

The regions of the Russian European North in their plans for tourism development are expecting to use the advantages of the Barents cooperation and are waiting for support and cooperation from the partners in Northern Norway, Sweden and Finland especially in the issues of training the specialists for the tourism industry, marketing and management of existing destinations and new tour products. The Barents cooperation creates special conditions for joint international activity in this field. Cross-border professional networks can serve as a fundament for new joint tour products attracting tourists in the Barents Region. New visa regulations adopted by the Norwegian Government in autumn this year could also be a good impulse for increasing the tourists flow from Russia.

This year the Arkhangelsk regional committee for international relations and tourism development together with the Norwegian companies Visit Tromso, Finnmark Reiseliv, Troms Reiseliv and Bedriftkompetanse AS are going to start a new project aimed at development of cooperation in the filed of event tourism. The project was granted NOK 250 000 by the Barents Secretariat. The activity within the project will be focused at establishing the partnership between the regional and local authorities as well as between the tourism associations and tour operators of Arkhangelsk oblast, Troms and Finnmark counties. The partners are going to analyze the possibilities for development of event tourism in Arkhangelsk oblast and Northern Norway. The important part of the project will be mapping of the most interesting cultural events that could in the future become the attractions for the tourists. The partners are going to make a common program for event tourism development for all region participating in the project and organize some pilot testing tours for the tour operators, agents and mass media representatives. This initiative could be a first step in development of new cross-border tour products worked out together by the Russian-Norwegian international team.

The number of tourists coming to the North-West of Russia today exceeds 12 million people. The experts say that this number could increase to 17-24 million by the year 2010 (www.nwrussia.ru). The Russian part of the Barents Region is visited by over 3 million of tourists annually. 20% of them are the foreigners. Tourism becomes an important part of regional economics and the regions of the Russian North hatch the ambitious plans of its development even despite of a threat of decline on the tourists services market caused by global financial crisis. Quite the contrary the development of this sector is seen as a possibility to diversify the regional economics making it less dependant on the world market fluctuations of the prices for raw materials.

Arkhangelsk and Murmansk oblasts and of course Karelia have own plans and programs on the development of tourists infrastructure and tourists attractions.

Karelia has a program of tourism development till the year 2010. In addition the Republican Ministry of economic development worked out the Strategy of tourism development till 2010. According to that the investments in the development of tourism infrastructure should grow up to 1 billion rubles. Today Karelia is a place of destination for 2 million tourists and in the nearest years the Republic hopes to increase this number by 50%. Today the regional budget provides investments in this sector of economy in the amount of 20,5 million rubles and approximately the same amount is planned to be invested from non-budget resources.

Murmansk oblast recently adopted the long-term program of tourism development for the 2009-2011. The total volume of financing this program is 417,9 million rubles and the main part of these investments is non-budget resources (375,4 million rubles). The number of tourists visiting Murmansk region varies from 28 to 33 thousand of people per year.

Arkhangelsk oblast also has the program of tourism development designed for the years 2007-2009. The region is annually visited by 220-240 thousand of tourists and this number is expected to reach the level of 325 thousand. The regional investments in the tourists infrastructure were almost 180 million rubles in 2007.

The regional activity on tourism development goes along with the policy of federal authorities. The Federal Strategy of Tourism Development for 2008-2015 plans to increase the number of incoming tourists to Russia to 35 million (the forecast for 2008 is 22,5 million). The number of hotels is to be increased twice in Russia and reach the level of 13-14 thousand in 2015. Nowadays tourism gives only 1,5% of federal GDP (6% of the GDP if taking into account the multiplicative effect) which is very low in comparison with the countries with better tourists industry development. In Austria for example tourism gives 6% of the GDP and over 16% with multiplicative effect.

The Russian Barents regions neighborhood with the countries of the Northern Europe gives a certain advantage for tourism development. But also the Nordic countries recently enjoyed a growing flow of the Russian tourists. For the first half of this year Russia was visited by 92416 tourists from Finland, Norway and Sweden which is 4,5% higher than in the same period last year and makes over 10% of the total foreign tourists flow in Russia. It is indicative that the number of Norwegian tourists increased by 13%, Finnish tourists – by 4,5% while the number of tourists from Sweden has slightly decreased (-2,3%). See the diagram

Number of Russians going abroad for vacations was increasing by 15-20% during the last several years. Today their number is close to 10 million and in 2010 will make 16 million according to the study prepared by the Centre of strategic research of Rosgosstrakh (Russian State Insurance). The experts say that the Russian outbound tourists flow will be growing by 13-15% annually in 2008-2010. For the first half of 2008 Norway was visited by 8527 Russian tourists which is 25% more than in the same period last year.

The number of Russian visitors to Sweden grew up by 46% and made 8480 tourists. Finland keeps the position of the most popular destination among the Russian tourists. In 2007 over 650 thousand Russian tourists visited this country according to the official statistics but according to the Finnish Tourists Board report this number was substantially higher: 850 000. In the first half of this year the number of Russian tourists to Finland increased by 4%.

But still the main gates for the foreign tourists are the capitals. In Russia over 75% of incoming tourists is received by Moscow and St. Petersburg. At the same time Moscow keeps the first place in the rating of the most expensive for the foreigners cities in the world and St. Petersburg takes the 18th position having left behind Helsinki (the 21st position) and Stockholm (the 31st position) and this gives the Russian regions an opportunity to provide better tourists services in price/quality correlation and thus to try to compete with the capitals in attracting tourists. The regions are trying to make own original tour products, they are active in creation of new local brands demonstrating ambitious plans and energy in development of tourists infrastructure and attraction of tourists both from abroad and other Russian regions. Some new tourists centers are going to appear far from the capitals in the next few years. 7 Russian regions gained the status of special tourists and recreation zones (Kaliningrad and Irkutsk regions, Krasnodarsky, Stavropolsky and Altaisky kray, Republic of Buryatia and Altai) and they are going to become the new points of tourists attraction not only because of rich natural resources but also due to fast infrastructural development. The application of Arkhangelsk oblast for establishing such a zone in the area of Solovki archipelago and Onega bay of the White sea did not pass through necessary formal procedure last year in the Ministry of Economic Development. Another significant state project in the tourism sector in the coming 10 years will be the development of infrastructure in Krasnodar krai in the framework of preparation for the Olympics 2014.

 Digram "Number of Russian tourists to Norway"

Diagram "Number of Russian tourists to Sweden"

Diagram "Number of Russian tourists to Finland"