Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2022 number 3

Studying the accessibility of tourism and recreation is taking on new relevance with stimulating tourist and recreational activities as an indicator of socio-economic development in Russian regions, on the one hand, and of the population’s needs to restore physical and emotional health, on the other. The observed inter-regional differentiation of Russian constituent entities in terms of recreation and tourism opportunities is determined by several factors. The economic one appears to be key, determining whether tourist travel is at all possible and what destinations are chosen by those living in regions. The purpose of this work is to classify regions in Russia, based on the effective demand level indicator, into typological groups by the accessibility of tourism and recreation to the population. We distinguish a total of five typological groups with regions differing in recreation and tourism opportunities. One-fifth of constituent entities in the Russian Federation show high or above-average potential in recreational activity and quality of destination choices. These territories can provide tourists to themselves and other regions, stimulating domestic tourism in Russia, as well as actively consume tourist services abroad. The dominant part of Russian regions (68.2%) belongs to the groups of low and below-average recreation and tourism opportunities. It puts forth the problem of domestic tourism accessibility. Further research will be aimed at identifying the accessibility of domestic tourism for the population residing in the regions from these typological groups, with due regard to price, infrastructure, and other territorial capabilities, across different types of tourism. The study applies the following methods: economic analysis, juxtaposition, comparison, generalization, induction, and deduction.