Prospects of rural and ethnographic tourism development … Ivanova.pdf · Prospects of rural and...
Transcript of Prospects of rural and ethnographic tourism development … Ivanova.pdf · Prospects of rural and...
Prospects of rural and ethnographic
tourism development in rural
municipalities of the Murmansk region
Galina N. Kharitonova and Ludmila V. Ivanova, Institute for Economic Studies, Kola Science Centre, Russian Academy of
Sciences, Apatity, Murmansk region, Russia
The 7th Circumpolar Agricultural Conference
Circumpolar Agricultural and Land Use Resources – Prospects and Perspectives for Productions and Industries
Alta, Finnmark, Norway, September 6. - 8. 2010
The share of agricultural lands in the Murmansk region is less than 2%.
At present the agriculture is specialized in cattle breeding, reindeer herding,
fishing in inlands reservoirs, sea animal hunting, egg production, growing
potatoes and fodder.
The main mission of the agriculture is supply of diet foodstuffs to certain
categories of population. For the rest of population 90% of foodstuffs is
delivered from more southern regions of the country as well as from the
neighbouring Nordic countries. Local foodstuffs are not competitive to the
imported products.
The transformation crisis of 1992 negatively influenced the agriculture of
the Murmansk region and welfare of the rural population. Fur animal farms
and greenhouse planting of vegetables were closed down as well as most of
fish growing factories. Due to environmental restrictions hunting volumes of
sea animals decreased sharply. Reindeer herding traditional for the local
minorities also became unprofitable that influenced number of reindeer.
Nowadays development of “rural” and ethnographic tourism types is a general worldwide tendency. At present most countries have organized tours to districts, where the local communities preserved their tradition life styles and elements of material and spiritual culture , and first of all to districts of residence of small ethnic groups. Well-known and popular tours are so numerous and offered tourist products are so various that the conception of “rural tourism” has got a broad interpretation. For instance on many rural areas outdoor museums of peasant life have been created; also specially built tourist “villages” stylized to life of one or another epoch or nation are wide spread.
To make the point clear we would like to note that in this
presentation under “rural tourism” we only mean those tours
where travelers live among “live” bearers of the culture, which
live their traditional or just slightly changed life. At the same
time the tourists’ stay places and their travel purposes can be
various. For instance, a tourist can stay over night with a local
resident involved in the tourist business or in a rural tourist
hotel. His travel purpose might be acquaintance with the local
culture, recreation fishing or nostalgic memories of the
childhood.
The Murmansk region is not an exception from the general tendency of
the tourist industry development. Today the two rural administrative
districts: Lovezerskiy and Terskiy have already got centres of “rural” and
ethnographic tourism and firms offering tours for acquainting the rural and
traditional lifestyle of the aboriginal nations of the Kola Peninsula – the
Sami and Russian Pomors. In other municipalities having rural
settlements (Kandalakshskiy, Kovdorskiy and Kolskiy) there are plans to
establish such centres and firms.
The preconditions for tourism development on rural territories are common
for all countries of the world. Of them the most typical ones for the Murmansk
region are the following:
• Urbanization;
• Intensification of urban lifestyle;
• Worsening ecological situation in urban settlements;
• Increasing spiritual and cultural needs of the population, for instance the
need “to know their historical roots”;
• Growth of population living standard.
Tourism development level on rural territories and in places of national
minorities residences are determined by many factors, which act differently, that
is either favour or hamper tourism development.
The general factors influencing positively tourist
development on rural territories are as follows:
• An active policy of local authorities, availability of a
territorial development strategy;
• High culture level of the local community, friendly
attitudes to tourists;
• State or regional support to the tourist industry;
• Unique or considerable tourist resources;
• Comparative safety of the region (terrorist,
environmental, political, crime);
• Location of specially protected natural territories in the
municipality or nearby its borders;
• Availability of transport infrastructure corresponding to
the tourist service level;
• Others.
Only some of these factors are typical for the Murmansk
region. First of all, this is the unique in Russia tourist resource –
spiritual and material culture of the Russian Pomors, which
settled the Terskiy coast of the Kola Peninsula in 10-12
centuries. The Sami people settlements of Lovozero and
Krasnoshchelje are popular among international tourists.
The active policy of the Murmansk regional government on
formation of such non-traditional for the regional economy
industry as tourism is an important positive factor. During the
transition to the market economy the necessary institutional
infrastructure for the tourism industry development was created
in the region. At present in the region there are 64 tourist
companies, number of hotel beds increased over two times
compared to 1990. In particular in rural tourism places (Umba,
Lovozero) tourist information centres were opened, mini-hotels,
cafes, and camping sites were built; in order to attract tourists
advertising brochures and event activities had been prepared
and have been annually financed from the regional budget.
These are, for instance, the Sami Games, Marine Regatta,
Pomor Folk Festivals, etc.
It should be noted that nowadays the group of factors
negatively affecting development of rural tourism and other kinds
of tourism connected to it is quite numerous. Of these in the
Murmansk region the most negatively influencing factors are the
following:
• Depressive economic condition of rural municipality.
• Unfavorable demographic situation (prevalence of elderly
among the population)
• Lack of strategic documents of territorial and socio-
economic planning of a rural area.
• Inadequate financial resources for realization of tourist
projects of potential investors.
• Inefficient state support of the economy, including tourism
as one of its sectors.
• Lack of a scientific and methodological support of tourism
development in rural areas.
• Lack of skilled staff for the tourism industry in rural areas.
• Lack of advertising tourist tours.
• Negative attitude of most population to realization of tourist
projects and presence of tourist, and others.
Indicators of tourism development in the rural tourism
centres of the Murmansk region in 2008
Number of
collective
accommodation
places
Number of nights Persons
accommodated,
people
Incomes from
the
accommodation,
services ths.
roubles
Total for the
region44 140448
26273 164233,2
Lovozerskiy
district4 1292 213 18900,0
Terskiy
district6 2048 496 27471,5
Collective accommodation in January-June, 2008
Number of
collective
accommodation
places
Number of
nights
Number of
visitors, people
Incomes from the
accommodation
services, ths.
roubles
Total for the
region
26 4254 79190 296965,3
Lovozerskiy
district
6 89 885 1965
Terskiy
district
2 18 141 132,6
Among problems of rural and ethnographic tourism an important
one is the problem of scientific and methodological support of these
tourism kinds. In spite of the incomes, which local residents get from
tourism, some of them are still dissatisfied with presence of tourists as
the presently used tourism technologies violate the existing lifestyle.
Already now there are numerous examples when several years of
tourist exploitation resulted in the situation when the initial
attractiveness of an ethnographic or rural route disappeared or did not
correspond to requirements of the travelers themselves.
In our opinion, principles of tourist development of rural territories
should be scientifically grounded with the territorial specificity taken
into consideration. Among others the general principles should be the
following: “Non-interference in the environment” and “non-violence of
the customs and lifestyle of the local population”. These principles
should become the rules for tourists’ and tourist firms behavior on rural
areas.
Thank you for your attention!