Rural Tourism May Become Additional Source of Revenue for “Forest Village” Population

Rural tourism development is one of the possible additional alternatives to improve the financial situation of the “project” village residents. According to some expert estimates, there is the potential for economic growth in such villages as Kazhym, Bolshaya Pyssa, Turya, Byzovaya and Priuralskoje.

For the residents of these settlements the new occupation might become an additional source of revenue. However, most of the local population is still skeptical about the idea of developing rural tourism on their territory. The fact is that historically such a form of “making money” has never been practiced by their ancestors, neighbours or acquaintances. The people are hardly aware of the fact that the settlements and natural, ethnocultural and other resources located on the territory can be used differently from what they have got accustomed to. Nevertheless, there are some rural citizens who would like to engage in tourism development; but they do not often know what to start with, what to do and what they will need to succeed.

It was for those motivated residents of the Forest Village project that training seminars on rural tourism perspectives, managerial and other aspects of the new activity were started.

First such seminar within the framework of the Forest Village project was held in Kazhym (Koygorodsky district) and it was initiated by the administration of the settlement. Among the participants were active entrepreneurs, teachers, local administration officers, unemployed and retired residents and some people from the neighboring village of Griva.

The program of the seminar was nominally divided into two parts: theoretical and practical. Having familiarized themselves with the basic concepts of rural tourism and its socio-economic importance for rural area development the participants of the meeting headed by Nina Nesterova, professor from the Syktyvkar State University, began to describe and evaluate tourist resources of their village and to draw SWAT-analysis for the Kazhym village. The participating residents of Kazhym and Griva split up in three smaller groups assessed the resources available and tried to detect strong and weak points of their settlements from the point of view of the area tourist potential.

As a conclusion, examples from other districts of the Republic of Komi were demonstrated. In some settlements of Udorsky, Izhemsky and Sysolsky districts a number of entrepreneurs have already started their business in the sphere of rural tourism. This part of the seminar was of the particular interest to the participants.