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For the first time in the history of tourism in our country, a macro-regional approach will be applied to its development: several regions will be united into a chain of connected routes. Trends figure out what it will give to the final consumer – the tourist
Domestic tourism is the “new black”
So they say in the tourism industry around the world: domestic tourism is at the forefront of the urban agenda. Back in December 2021, the government of our country approved the state program for the development of tourism, which involves the unification of points of attraction for tourists in different regions of the country into single routes. Taking into account the potential, 12 priority tourist macro-territories have been identified, which include 52 subjects of our country. Rostourism and developers are faced with the task of introducing an integrated approach to their development through the concept of territorial planning.
In June 2022, SPIEF hosted the signing of an agreement between the Federal Tourism Agency and the heads of eight regions included in the tourist macro-region “From Moscow to St. Petersburg”. As a result, it is planned to develop a tourism master plan for this macroregion. Already today, three macro-territories are under development: the Big Golden Ring, the Far East and the Western South of our country.
Within the framework of the national project “Development of tourism and the hospitality industry”, a scheme for the development of tourism in our country as a whole is also being developed, which Rostourism presented at the foresight session in Nizhny Novgorod in July 2022. Elena Lysenkova, deputy head of the department, said that the project is being developed in two stages. The first includes an assessment of the tourist flow of territories, entry points and the development of routes. As part of the second stage, a scheme for the development of tourism in the country will be developed, modeling the tourist flow for the future until 2035. Emphasis will be placed on interregional routes that ensure the connectivity of the regions.
What is a master plan
In our country, this word did not exist until 2010. Today, the concept of a master plan is widely used, and several dozen such documents have been developed in the country, but master planning has not yet been formalized. At the same time, abroad, all city documentation and city development strategy is initially superimposed on all socio-economic factors and is called master planning.
Master planning is the development of a document (master plan) at the intersection of strategic and territorial planning, which combines both goals, objectives and steps to achieve them in terms of socio-economic development (city, region, macro-region), and in terms of management spatial development. This is a comprehensive multi-component document that involves the involvement of all stakeholders: local residents, the expert community, business, and authorities.
“For our country, this is an innovation that has not yet been legally fixed, but is being actively implemented. VEB.RF has developed a national standard for master plans. Everything goes to the fact that the master plan will appear in the legislation: Rostourism is working on a new law on tourism instead of the old one, 1996, and the concept of a tourist master plan is introduced there. The possibility of introducing amendments to the legislation regarding the inclusion of a master plan in strategic planning documents is being considered. It is important to give the regulatory opportunity to cities and regions to order such documents, because today they can finance from the budget only what is provided for by law, ”explains Ksenia Titova, head of the project office of ProGorod LLC (VEB.RF Group).
How is tourism organized?
Tourist experience, first of all, consists of choosing a place to visit (destination): “Where I’m going.” Most often, this is some well-known location that we have heard about before. Next is the organization of the everyday details of the trip: how to get there, where to stay, where to eat. And already on the ground – the choice of places of attraction (attractions) and routes. All this together forms the so-called tourism product.
The distribution of tourists by location is the tourist flow. And one of the most important indicators of the market is the duration of the trip and the return of the tourist, that is, the repeated visit to the place. They, in turn, depend on the tourism product.
“In our country there are many bright, memorable locations: Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Baikal, the Caucasus, Kaliningrad – places that everyone dreams of visiting. It is important that they have a formed tourist product behind them, for which the tourist will go. We are working on this,” says Titova.
The tourist flow and tourism performance in each region is affected by infrastructure – how convenient it is to get to the place. Today, most regions are forced to travel around the country with a “knee” through Moscow or another large city (if they are going somewhere other than Moscow). At the same time, only 24% of all tourist trips are made to the capital and the Moscow region, and Moscow, in turn, is the source of only 20% of the country’s tourist flow. For example, being on Sakhalin, you cannot come to Kamchatka, although it is closer: you have to fly through Vladivostok.
“There are many attractive world-class tourist sites in our country, and if you make the road to them comfortable, you can radically increase their tourist attractiveness. However, the density of roads even in the inhabited part of our country is low, especially roads of the highest technical categories (there are less than 7000 km of them for all 1,5 million km of roads in our country). From the point of view of tourism, roads are an absolutely key issue.
Urbanist Jane Jacobs said: “In order to live, the city must sell something for the ramparts.” Any product, but it is most profitable for the city to sell impressions. This is the best thing you can think of for the old Russian cities. The point is infrastructure, which, in turn, will provide jobs for locals and space for business,” comments Mikhail Blinkin, Academic Supervisor of the Faculty of Urban and Regional Development, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
Accommodation is another important attribute of travel. Our country has a high share of the “gray” market, which in some regions reaches 30% of the total number of rooms. These are informal accommodation facilities: apartments, apartments, guest houses. They become a problem for all industry players: such a market is difficult to calculate, and its participants do not pay taxes. Finally, the quality of such services is also questionable. All this affects the duration of the trip.
How tourists are hindered by the borders of regions
“In addition, the duration of the trip is affected by connectivity: when arriving in Tarusa (Kaluga region), a tourist could supplement his trip with a trip to Polenovo (Tula region), which is located only 5 km along the Oka, but due to the rare river communication, there is such an opportunity far from everyone. Establishing inter-regional links leads to an increase in the tourist flow of the regions, and gives tourists access to many attractions, a wide choice of accommodations and new routes.
That is why we say that it is important for the regions to be interconnected into a single tourist space. The tourist does not and should not think in terms of the administrative boundaries of the regions. This is the advantage of the macro-regional development of tourism, where the product is primary, and not its territorial location,” continues Ksenia Titova.
Getting to the territory of the Big Golden Ring, the tourist does not think about what area he is currently in, he is interested in a specific location. Another example is Baikal. It cannot be considered as a tourist destination within the framework of one subject, since it covers the territories of several regions – Buryatia and the Irkutsk region. That is why, within the framework of the national project, an approach was chosen to develop tourism at the macro-region level, as if erasing the borders of regions for tourists.
Domestic tourism: it was – it became
In Soviet times, the recreation of the population was planned and organized centrally according to the areas of tourism (health resorts, cultural and educational) and depending on the target audience (Komsomol members, children, pioneers, working youth). But it has always been a group or organized (package) tourism. Today, the tourist himself chooses the location on the basis of the check for the trip, which is formed by the sum of expenses for movement and accommodation.
According to comprehensive analysis conducted as part of the development of master plans, the trend is now shifting from group trips to individual trips, and tourists are striving for a unique tourism experience. A modern tourist will prefer to travel by car or by train (these modes of transport are among the most popular in the country today, Titova notes).
This shift from group travel to individual tourism is very important for the industry, it is it that forms the supply in the market. As a result, niche locations with unique positioning appear. To facilitate access to such places, evenly distribute the tourist flow throughout the country, enrich the tourist experience (so that a tourist can see more during one trip), and popularize little-known locations, a spatial approach to tourism development and a master plan tool was chosen.
Spatial development of tourism – understanding the distribution of tourist flow across the territory (existing and predicted), entry points (station, airport, highway), distribution of tourist infrastructure (and how it correlates with forecast loads for tourist flow), attractions distributed by type of tourism (for example, extreme , pilgrimage, student, business, event and so on). Mapping of attractions, development of routes, distribution of infrastructure are carried out on these layers.
Where do they rest in our country now?
The composition of the macro-regions participating in the state program includes popular tourist destinations within our country: Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Primorye, Baikal, Yekaterinburg, Altai, Kaliningrad, Moscow and St. Petersburg, Murmansk, the Golden Ring, southern sea resorts, Dagestan, the Volga region. Further, in the minds of the mass tourist, “just our country” begins.
“As part of the all-Russian tourism master plan, the task is to work out that “rest of Russia”, which is not very well known yet, but where there is something to see. We plan to offer a new tourism product outside the already identified 12 macro-regions,” concludes Ksenia Titova.
Why do regions unite?
Usually, neighboring regions compete for tourists, fearing to lose part of their tourist flow, but forgetting that cooperation has more advantages than competition. One of the key tasks that the master plan of the tourist macro-region solves is to show the regions that the formation of a single tourism product is beneficial to them. Cooperation gives a total flow and, accordingly, increases profitability.
The created master plans are based on the principle of multimodality of routes: “train – bus – carsharing – bicycle – ferry (after all, most of the tourist cities in our country are located on rivers)”. Due to the possibility of changing the means of transportation, the route itself becomes more interesting, richer, and its planning is easier. As a result, the duration of the trip increases, and hence the indicators of the effectiveness of tourism for the region.
“Seamless transfer is very important for the development of domestic tourism. A mass tourist, first of all, thinks not about emotional impressions, but about everyday amenities: the choice of ways to get to a point of interest, a well-equipped railway station, and park-and-ride parking. A good interchange hub always becomes a cultural, entertainment, and commercial place of attraction not only for tourists, but also within the city,” says Blinkin from the HSE.
Who plays the main roles in the project
Local government
What is required from the regional authorities? Data and information, cooperation in the development of analysis and solutions. No one knows the city, region and attractions better than they do. Collection and systematization of initial data, including statistical data, is the most difficult stage in the work on master plans. The team of the ProGorod project office is sure: “To provide data, to be in a dialogue, to verify, to give comments is the best help. On the other hand, it is important to assist the regions themselves in introducing our proposals into their regulatory documents: strategies, city documentation. Without this, master plans simply will not work. And, of course, finding investors is a lot of work. The master plan for the regions is primarily a tool, a way of making decisions. On its basis, regional authorities can determine priorities for the budget, justify applications for funding, draw up investment lots in the field of tourism infrastructure. Their role is huge.”
Ivan Polissky, managing partner of the Nikola-Lenivets art park, shared an example of the implementation of such cooperation with Trends: “We are involved in the development of a master plan with an eye to the implementation of an investment project worth several hundred million rubles. We want to increase the all-season room stock to 600 rooms. Now we need to model how to do this, taking into account our characteristics and attitude to nature. The question of engineering and road networks immediately arises. The road to Nikola-Lenivets will be repaired by September thanks to the support of the governor.”
Small business
From the data obtained during the first stage of a major sociological survey conducted as part of the development of master plans, it became clear that the majority of local residents are ready to work in tourism, but not as employees, but developing their own business.
Right now, local business is forming a modern tourism product. Most of the new points of attraction are private initiatives. Examples include the Nikola-Lenivets art park, Kolomna marshmallow, the famous Tula kalach “Mark and the Lion”, Vadim Dymov’s restaurant projects in Suzdal, the Astashovo forest tower, farm lunches in the village of Knyazhevo, Yaroslavl Region, and much more – all this is a private business .
“The master plan for large territories greatly simplifies decision-making for investors, because it is developed and signed by the municipality, the region, and individual federal structures, for example, the Ministry of Natural Resources, which manages specially protected natural areas. That is, it is created not to attract tourists, but to attract investors and build more facilities that will attract tourists and help cope with the flow,” continues Ivan Polissky.
Grassroots initiative forms a tourism product, which then promotes the region. Without it, we would have lived in the souvenir paradigm of gingerbread, samovar and gzhel. The government sees and appreciates such a contribution, which is why, for example, VAT was abolished for hotels: Rostourism is also promoting other simplifying tools for the market.
What’s next?
Today, three macro-territories are under development – the Big Golden Ring, the Far East and the Western South of our country, as well as a tourism scheme for the whole country. At different stages, the main technical and economic parameters of the tourist and supporting infrastructure objects to be placed, the architectural code will be worked out, the tourist flow will be assessed and forecast, the load on the infrastructure and even the ecosystem will be calculated.
Each project will contain at least two investment lots for each participating region, within the boundaries of which solutions for all-season resorts will be developed. For them, in turn, a functional model of the territory, zoning, implementation plans with potential sources of financing and indicative cost will be worked out. The deadline for the development of all four master plans is until December 1, 2022, and the project implementation period is calculated until 2035.
Developers will propose changes to regional urban planning documents, as well as federal regulations. This will ensure the implementation of the solutions proposed in the master plans.