French tourists to open up small Russian tourist towns

The seating of Russian-French working group recently took place in Uglich. The parties discussed promotion of tourist product and agreed on mutual cooperation steps.

The Press-Secretary for Uglich’s Mayor Ms. Irina Korableva told RATA-news that our country has presented tourist resources of Uglich, Dmitrov, Myshkin, Suzdal’, Tobol’sk, Azov, Kungur and Yelabuga. All these towns are members to Small Tourist Towns and develop tourism as one of the major economy’s sectors. Besides the fact that Russian tourist infrastructure is now very poorly developed these key tourist towns have managed to blossom out.

According to local authorities’ statistics Uglich welcomes over 250 thousand visitors every year. The town and the area around it feature 15 private interactive museums, 9 hotels and recreation centers of international standards.

Located near Moscow the town of Dmitrov welcomes more than half a million tourists every year. There are 7 mountain-ski resorts, 5 golf courses (one of which is №1 in Eastern Europe), 2 polo fields and Europe’s best shooting range in this town. Its hotels are capable of accommodating 2.5 thousand people, and the new ones emerge every year.  

Myshkin with its 6 thousand inhabitants is the smallest of all featured towns. It offers 21 tourist attractions, 8 hotels and guest houses. Every year the town is visited by up to 150 thousand tourists.    

The Association headed by Uglich’s Mayor Ms. Eleonora Sheremetyeva hopes that such small tourist centers would drive not only domestic tourism but would also attract more overseas visitors.

The French side was represented by the Director of France’s National Association of Resort and Tourist Towns Ms. Geraldin Leduc. She said that many towns that are members of the French Association wish to find sister towns in Russia. So the recent meeting could help her to put together the “harmonious pairs”.

During three days the French guests had been seeing over the tourist infrastructure of Uglich, Myshkin and Dmitrov so they would know what to offer to their customers back in France.