Путевые студенты

My name is Iwan Snels, I have successfully finished the "Outbound tourism and tour operation management Faculty" of the Breda International Tourism University (the Netherlands). After writing my diploma in Sochi and working for a Dutch tour operator specialised in adventurous tours to Russia and China, I am now working for Krasnov Tourist Agency in Perm. During my work for Krasnov TA since December 2003, I was able to get to know Perm and its province. I was asked to write about my opinion on tourism in Prikamye. I think that Prikamye has a fairly good potential for a number of tourism markets.

First of all, the fact that Perm is one of the fastest growing cities regarding economical development, gives the city a great potential for national business tourism. This is particularly interesting, because business tourists per definition spend more money than leisure tourists do. As business tourism develops, it will become interesting for Perm to maximize the business tourism turnovers by attraction of seminars to the city. Hereby, Perm will be helped by its favourable prices in comparison to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Secondly, the extensive (unspoiled) nature, the many rivers and the nearby Urals make Prikamye a unique province for outdoor (active) tourism. Arguably, Prikamye is the best place for trekking, boating, fishing and hunting tours in the whole of European Russia. It is common knowledge that the tourism product consists of three sub products: transport, accommodation and entertainment. The province has a great number of tourism accommodations (bases). The bases, with their wide variety of location, quality, costs, capacity, available excursions and equipment, make up for an excellent offer regarding the accommodation and entertainment sub products. Although the transportation sub product remains open for improvement (bases are hard to reach because of their remote locations, car/minibus hire (personal transport) is very expensive and the (rail) road infrastructure is bad), the overall outdoor leisure tourism potential in Prikamye is impressive. Tourist markets should primarily be sought in Perm city, but also ot her cities are interesting for tourism attraction. The relatively nearby Moscow province, for example, completely lacks possibilities for outdoor (active) tourism but has a great number of potential tourists who have the will and the money for outdoor recreation and therefore is a particular interesting market.

Thirdly, with the steadily and quickly growing number of foreign tourists visiting Russia, Perm has the potential to attract its share of this market. Nevertheless, Perm does not yet appear on the world map of tourism at all, whereas close neighbour Yekaterinburg is making great progress. The future for international tourism to Perm is rather negative, taking into account the very poor number of current international tourist arrivals and the little measures that are taken for improvement. In order to break through the bad situation and to vitalise tourism to Perm, the following problems have to be faced:

Perm is internationally unknown. By far the biggest problem is that people from outside Russia and its former republics have never heard of the existence of Perm. After all, it is obvious that people cannot visit a place that they do not know the existence of. For the very few that have heard about the city, there is too little information available in foreign languages. Although the Ural Mountains enjoy a great recognition abroad, nearly all foreign visits to the Ural area are in favour of the much better-known city of Yekaterinburg (the number of foreign visits to Yekaterinburg is growing at a fast rate). The latter is partly the achievement of the good and well-balanced overall tourism strategy of Perm's neighbouring province. Name building and market positioning are globally recognized as the most important factor in structural attraction of tourism and are strictly the job of local government as it is impossible for the single local tour operators to do so. Perm lacks an overall strategy for t ourism and name promotion and its local government fails completely at the moment. It is strange that, while Perm has a great potential for tourism, chances are not taken. Name building efforts are not necessarily expensive and not always difficult to achieve either. For example, an English version of the city's internet site (www.perm.ru) would not be expensive but could already help a great deal. Furthermore, local government can provide some space on (inter)national tourism fairs (for example MITT Moscow) for their incoming tour operators to promote the city. This, by the way, is also very favourable for Perm's domestic tourism! The local government could create tourist maps of Perm (Yekaterinburg already did this) or promotional leaflets to disperse among its tour operators as promotional material. Another example could be to invite some foreign journalists (for example through Perm's sister-cities of Oxford and Louisville). International tourism is constantly in search of new and original destinations an d always show interest in that what they do not know yet. As Perm is a big city with a big cultural and nature offer, it can be one of them!

Fragmented tourism infrastructure. The tourism infrastructure in Perm is very fragmented, there is little co-operation. Providers of tourism in the Perm province tend to see each other as competitors too much. Competition is necessary, but nevertheless co-operation is a must for structural tourism development. The individual knows little, but many individuals know a lot. The Perm Tourist Guild (PTG), where Krasnov TA is not only a member, but also one of the founders of, is a good example. As a board of prominent tourism companies, they draw the line for future tourism development by discussing mutual problems and carry forward solutions that are beneficial for all. And, even more important, the shared knowledge and experience of bodies such as the PTG should be used for strategic overall tourism planning. In the modern tourism system, associations such as PTG often have a representative in tourism authorities of the local government. Tourism associations are important and should be developed furth er in the near future. They are to be given more power and more responsibilities as they currently are the only tourism experts in the Perm province. Note that co-operation is favourable for tourism development on the whole, regardless the type of tourism.

Low hospitality standards. It is often forgotten that tourism is not a tangible product but tourism is a service. Providing good service is very important to meet demands of tourists today; tourists have to be smiled at and they have to be treated well. Pro-activity (to 'sense' a need of a tourist before the tourist actually asks for it) is a prominent issue in modern hospitality trainings. Russian tourist providers have a bad name when it comes to service. For example, a quick visit to hotels, brings forward many points of bad service. At their reception, English is badly spoken, receptionists are neither helpful nor kind and pro-activity is a thing they never heard of. The result of bad service to a tourist (no matter how good the hotel room is!), results in a bad experience: the tourist will never come back and on the tourist's return he/she will share these bad experiences with a number of people (who will never come anymore). On the other hand, provision of good service will help a great deal. Tourists who were treated well are happy and will tell many people about the good service that they were given and are likely to become a repeat-visitor. As service is generally bad in the whole of Russia, Perm has the opportunity to create a competitive advantage over other Russian cities by offering good services. Service is especially important in Russia, as not many tourists speak Russian and therefore relatively need a lot of guidance (and are willing to pay for it!). It is the responsibility of tourism education institutes to increase the hospitality level of their students and to improve their language tuition. Also important is to teach the basics of tourism marketing in order to understand tourists better.

As a conclusion, Perm is at the beginning of what can possibly be a turbulent development in tourism. General knowledge of the tourism industry is growing and (inter)national tourism numbers are on the increase. Nevertheless, Perm is suffering from a big gap of knowledge and planning when compared to Moscow, St. Petersburg or closest competitor Yekaterinburg. Strategic tourism planning, organisation and financial help from (local) government are essential for the future of tourism in Perm and Prikamye. The responsible educational bodies have to do their share by improving the quality of tourism education by improvement of training in hospitality, tourism marketing and foreign languages. Tourism providers in Perm have to unite. Together with the province authorities they have to promote what we do know but tourists do not know: that Prikamye is a great place for cultural and (active) outdoor tourism.

Автор: Iwan Snels, Holland