State support and tourism potential of the Far East and the Arctic discussed at the RUSSIA EXPO
On January
24, the International RUSSIA EXPO held a round table discussion on Tourism in
the Far East and the Arctic: State Support and Regional Potential. The expert
dialog was attended by Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian
Federation Dmitry Vakhrukov, State Secretary, Deputy Minister of the Russian
Federation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic Pavel Volkov,
Head of the Tourism Committee of the Murmansk region Alexander Eliseev, First
Deputy Minister of Economic Development and External Relations of the Amur
region Ekaterina Kireeva and others. The event was held as part of the business
program of the Day of the Far East and the Arctic.
The experts
discussed whether the infrastructure of Far East and Arctic tourism is ready to
meet its guest, what measures of state support for the development of the
industry are most important, how cooperation between regional and federal tour
operators is built and how to increase the tourist attractiveness of the
region.
"In accordance with the decisions of our President, tourism has become a nationwide project, and largely due to this, more and more Russian citizens are discovering the Far East. One of the key problems of the region is remoteness, but we are successfully solving this issue by expanding the route network," said roundtable moderator Pavel Volkov.
Dmitry
Vakhrukov noted the growth of tourist traffic to the Far East and spoke about
federal support for the tourism industry:
"We
have noted a significant increase in tourist travel to the Far East. According
to our data, it is more than 40% in 2023, compared to 2022, which, in turn, was
10% higher than 2021. Thanks to this, the share of trips to the Far East region
and the Arctic has grown from 7.4% to 8.6% of the total number of tourists in
Russia, and this is encouraging to see. And, of course, we are not leaving the
Far East behind in terms of federal support: we estimate that the share of
federal funds allocated to support tourism in the Far East is about 10%. This
includes support for tourism infrastructure, the construction of fast-built
modular hotels, and increasing the tourist attractiveness of cities".
According
to him, the expansion of preferential lending programs for the construction of
year-round amusement parks and ski infrastructure is also relevant for the Far
East. In addition, the deputy minister spoke about some of the results of the
visit of the President of the Russian Federation to the region:
"We were offered, and we were supported by the President, to establish a minimum amount of regional subsidies in the amount of at least 30 million rubles per region. This will allow us to move towards increasing the tourist attractiveness of small subjects".
In turn,
Alexander Eliseev focused the attention of those present on the issues of
adjusting state support measures: "It turns out that we launch a "big
pharmacy", and the regions "diagnose" themselves, so we should
focus on diagnosis. Diagnose everyone: first think about what can be done to
make something work, identify growth points, and only then look for and adjust
support measures. This is the key point".
The subject
of expansion, development and promotion of national tourist routes and the main
expectations in this direction was raised by Olga Zakharova, Director of the
Urban Economy division of ASI.
"We have two national tourist routes in
the summer in the Far East and I think five in the Arctic. In my opinion, this
is negligible, because in fact the Far East has a lot to be proud of and, on
the one hand, the emphasis is on the development of domestic tourism, but at
the same time we realize that there are many people who want to get to Russia,
to feel it, to see it. Without national
routes this is impossible, because even if a person does not know, for example,
the language, they look at certain markers. Therefore, we must provide for
indicators that, on the one hand, reveal the tourist potential of the
territories, and on the other hand, allow both our citizens and foreigners to
see our country from the best side," Olga Zakharova said.
