New publication
An article “Tourism industry in a ‘new reality’ and regional development opportunities: the case of Russia” by Andrei Yakovlev, Olga Balaeva, Marina Predvoditeleva and Nina Ershova has been published online in Area Development and Policy.
The article is based on the main findings of the project carried out with RSPP that assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on Russian industries. The COVID-19-related crisis had a strong negative effect on the world tourism industry, as has the current military conflict in Ukraine*. However, with crises come opportunities as this research shows in the case of the Russian tourism industry. The 2020 crisis created the preconditions and opportunities to change the tourism industry’s historically distorted outward-oriented structure and promote regional development through domestic tourism. Active communications between the government and business during the pandemic helped reduce uncertainty for firms and design and implement appropriate governmental sectoral policies. The demand for such policies increased after large-scale international sanctions imposed on Russia in 2022. However, the allocation of large federal budget financial resources to support the industry also creates risks of opportunistic behaviour. The tourism industry’s development in Russia will depend on the government’s ability to resist pressure from rent-seeking interest groups.
*the article was submitted to ADP prior to the February 24th, 2022