First South-Russian forum of business and event tourism started in Krasnodar

Representatives of tourist industry of the Southern Federal District met in Krasnodar to discuss the pressing issues and challenges in the area of business and entertainment tourism. The forum includes educational sessions related to the questions of business tourism.

— Business tourism is one of the most important branches of Krasnodar Region’s economy. Our city is among most attractive platforms for business tourism not only in Kuban, but in Russia in whole. In the past year 1,2 million business tourists visited Krasnodar, this is a good indicator. Regarding the development prospects, local authorities render support to the branch, — Deputy Director of the department of economic development, investments and external affairs Andrey Britchenko said.

According to Andrey Britchenko at the moment the main problem is a lack of centralized excursion service which would allow for consolidating efforts of all tourist enterprises and improving quality of their work. However the authorities are already working on this — now there is an act on the creation of Tourist Information Center (TIC) — the first in city system of centralized informing the tourists. TIC is to start working in July 1, 2016.

During the plenary session specialists highlighted the aspects of business and event tourism development in Russia. By the opinion of one of guest experts — Vice-President of the Russian tourist industry union, Chairman of the RF Chamber of Commerce and Industry Committee on business development in tourist, hotel, resort and recreation industry Yuri Barzykin, despite difficult economic situation in the country there is a growth of consumers’ interest in this branch and we see obvious prospects in it.

— Krasnodar is one of the most promising platforms for the development of business and event tourism. Advantageous geographic situation, well-developed infrastructure and transportation system of the city attract the largest foreign and domestic companies. The success of business tourism is associated with the quality and variety of hotel facilities of Krasnodar: at the territory of the city there are 238 hotels a majority of which have good conference-capabilities. Krasnodar is attractive for foreign businessmen as well: over 400 local companies work with foreign capital. In the past year the number of business tourists was nearly 95 per cent of the whole tourist flow, — Yuri Barzykin said.