"Eco-efficient tourism" presents technologies for facilitation of tourist stopovers along Blue Road

A training seminar "Eco-efficient technologies in tourism" was held in Pryazha  on April 22. The participants of the seminar were presented the experience and best Russian and foreign practices of establishment and development of tourism stopovers along popular tourist routes.

Local entrepreneurs, specialists from District and Settlement Administrations as well as local experts in tourism and culture took part in the Seminar.

The training was divided into 3 sections. The first part was devoted to reports on theory and practice of recreational zones creation and introduction of eco-efficient technologies in the sphere of tourism presented by Russian and Finnish partners of the project. The leader of the project Igor Shevchuk gave a speech on implementation of eco-efficiency concept in tourism. Experts from Institute of Economic Studies of  Karelian Research Centre of RAS had done the review of best practices of creation and development of recreational zones. Finnish Environment Institute representative Suvi Kärmeniemi shared Finnish experience of tourist routes development (the example of international route “Blue Road”) with the guests of the Seminar. And the mayor of Ilomantsi Markku Lappalainen told about implementation of eco-efficiency concept in his city and invited everyone to attend "Eco-hiking day" that will be organized in the framework of the project on June 29.

The second section was devoted to workshop on financial and consulting provision of business in the sphere of tourism. The director of Student business incubator of PetrSU Alexander Konovalov told about the opportunities for receiving grant support of business activity and basis of business planning. The discussion had also touched upon main problems that are faced by first-time entrepreneurs and opportunities that could be discovered after getting consulting support of business projects.

The final session dealt with technical and organizational solutions for development of recreational territories. Alexander Berdino, one of the members of a project technical group, had presented the review of existing technical solutions for tourist infrastructural objects development, and the Head of land relations and architecture of Pryazha municipal district Administration Miroslava Nazarina familiarized the participants with legal aspects and regimes of land use in the framework of recreational zones creation.

According to participants' opinions, the seminar has become a useful training and discussion platform, that allowed to get new knowledge on how to organize business related to provision of tourist services and what up-to-date technologies could be used for the development of tourist stopovers.

The second pilot territory of the project - Sortavala district - will host a similar seminar on May 30-31, 2013.