Место издания:University of Coimbra Коимбра, Португалия
Первая страница:84
Последняя страница:85
Аннотация:Events are increasingly used worldwide as instruments for economic and social growth and cultural heritage involvement in tourism activities. They help to distinguish tourism destinations and to attract more tourists as well as local residents. Event activities can have a strong emotional impact on visitors, create a sense of celebration and, as a result, provide more intimate communication between tourists and destinations than conventional advertising campaigns do. That is why they are more consciously used as a tool for tourism destinations marketing. The importance of event organization for the development of tourism industry in Russia is obvious. Many cities and regions are now planning to build special events and even event-series and successively move to event-tourism products. In 2013 the Russian Ministry of Culture presented the "National Calendar of Events" project which brought together 160 major events for tourists in 74 regions. In 2016 the calendar contained more than 2000 events.
The study focuses on the events held in the most famous World Heritage cultural sites of Russia - Moscow, Saint Petersburg and the "Golden Ring of Russia" towns. All these sites are of outstanding cultural and historic value and serve as symbols of the country. Nowadays tourists are particularly attracted by the combination of heritage sites with ongoing events, such as light festivals in Moscow and in Saint Petersburg, Maslenitsa (Shrovetide) celebrations, various music, food, sport festivals, etc. Special attention is paid to the "Times and Epochs" festival of reconstruction organized annually since 2011 in Kolomenskoye museum-reserve (in the buffer zone of the UNESCO World Heritage site). In 2015 this festival was attended by 300 thousand visitors (including 20 thousand foreign tourists).
The demand for events in Russia is growing but there are urgent questions of heritage preservation and sustainability to be answered. In addition, event activities are sometimes organized 'per se' but they should be considered as important tools for tourism management. Culture and tourism are both complex social phenomena. It is necessary to establish special mechanisms and platforms based on partnership relations among a wide range of stakeholders for their effective interaction. It is important to realize the significance of culture not only does it enhance the attractiveness of tourist destinations but it goes much further in that it creates a comfortable environment for living, working and investing. The establishment of partnership between cultural enterprises on one hand and tourism industry on the other is difficult as they are driven by different and sometimes conflicting interests. Partnerships should be developed not only between cultural institutions and tourism business community but, in this context, to cover the entire "state - business - society" system turning into a social partnership in its broadest sense.