Sergey Ivanov: ''We will cross the bar of 3 million tourists in Tatarstan this year''
Market experts are gathered in Kazan to discuss how to manage tourist projects, how to attract business to them and what to do with land
On 23 October, Chairman of the State Committee for Tourism of the Republic of Tatarstan Sergey Ivanov and Director General of Tourism Development Centre of the Republic of Tatarstan ANO Oksana Sargina announced upcoming 'Kazan Tourism Forum 2017. Benchmarks of the Future' forum. Both world experts and Russian entrepreneurs will come to Kazan to share successful cases and tell how not to do harm to tourist traffic. It also became known that they had things to talk about. Besides standard problems for the very sector (project management systems, work with personnel, etc.), tourism had its own specifics: it is difficult to attract investors to tour projects, while both the federal and regional legislature impedes from solving their problems. Realnoe Vremya tells what 2,000 participants of the tourism market who registered for the event should wait for.
Tourist workers are gathered in Kazan to decide how the tourism sector should live further on
The 4 th 'Kazan Tourism Forum 2017. Benchmarks of the Future' forum is to take place in Kazan from 2 to 3 November that gathers players and experts of the tourism industry on its platform every two years. Chairman of the State Committee for Tourism of the Republic of Tatarstan Sergey Ivanov started the press conference in Tatar-Inform agency with saying that the problems that were on the agenda of the next 3-5 years would be considered in the event.
There were chosen four main topics of the forum, in total. Integrated management of tourism territories, which are many in Tatarstan, is the first one.
''The question of effective management of a certain tourism territory is often priority now: how to increase tourist flows, how not to do harm to the territory where tourist flows are attracted, how to make the business in these territories comfortable, how to unite the locals, representatives of business, authorities and tourists in one place correctly,'' Ivanov noted.
The event's main focus is made to right the integrated management of attraction points for tourists. This is why the invited experts will share successful cases with their colleagues and tell how to naturally develop their project.
Land is not given, and investors don't go
Work with investors is the second topic that will be discussed on the forum. Here the state committee chairman reminded about the Federal Target Programme called Development of Domestic and Inbound Tourism in the Russian Federation (2011-2018), which is based on state and private partnership.
''On the forum, we want openly, frankly, honestly talk what real obstacles for investors who would like to invest are, what problems we can solve at the regional level, what problems we should solve at the federal level, what mechanisms for collaboration of the budget and private money are needed, how we need to change the legal framework as well,'' Ivanov told.
Later he put an example of those problems. For instance, investors have difficulties with obtaining a parcel to fulfil a tourism project.
''First of all, I am speaking about the projects that need capital investments. Here we are influenced by the federal and regional legislature, even more by the federal legislature. Of course, this road in all regions is very uneasy because there are natural reserves, capital construction is seriously limited, there are other different limits that an investor is imposed.''
So, the process of getting a parcel often takes much time, what businessmen are not already ready to accept.
Management of human capital in tourism is the third question raised on the forum. According to Sergey Ivanov, they have a task of arranging work with the best staff. For this reason, they need to understand how to keep, develop and motivate them. And the fourth part of topics is linked with research of trends in the tourism industry: how tourist preferences change, how this behavioural model changes while choosing a tourism product.
With Russian and international experts
Director General of Tourism Development Centre of the Republic of Tatarstan ANO Oksana Sargina told that 25 speakers were invited to participate in the forum, of which 10 are international experts from the Czech Republic, Greece, Portugal and Finland. Russian specialists will also tell about their experience.
It seems that there won't be empty seats on the forum – the participation is free, and 2,000 people mainly from the Volga Federal District have already registered for it. Tourism companies and providers, museums and nature reserves, marketing and event companies, the media register a lot.
Kazan to cross 3 million
The efforts and money of Tatarstan to develop tourism also continue yielding fruits. According to Sergey Ivanov, at the moment the tourist traffic has increased by 6,5% in comparison with the last year.
''We plan to end 2017 with a 6,5-8% growth of the tourist traffic. As far as you know, there were 2 million 900k [tourists] last year. Now the tendency shows that we will cross 3m this year. It will be a very important fact for us,'' the chairman of the State Committee for Tourism of the Republic of Tatarstan concluded.