Prospects of rural and ethnographic

tourism development in rural

municipalities of the Murmansk region

Galina N. Kharitonova and Ludmila V. Ivanova, Institute for Economic Studies, Kola Science Centre, Russian Academy of

Sciences, Apatity, Murmansk region, Russia

The 7th Circumpolar Agricultural Conference

Circumpolar Agricultural and Land Use Resources – Prospects and Perspectives for Productions and Industries

Alta, Finnmark, Norway, September 6. - 8. 2010

The share of agricultural lands in the Murmansk region is less than 2%.

At present the agriculture is specialized in cattle breeding, reindeer herding,

fishing in inlands reservoirs, sea animal hunting, egg production, growing

potatoes and fodder.

The main mission of the agriculture is supply of diet foodstuffs to certain

categories of population. For the rest of population 90% of foodstuffs is

delivered from more southern regions of the country as well as from the

neighbouring Nordic countries. Local foodstuffs are not competitive to the

imported products.

The transformation crisis of 1992 negatively influenced the agriculture of

the Murmansk region and welfare of the rural population. Fur animal farms

and greenhouse planting of vegetables were closed down as well as most of

fish growing factories. Due to environmental restrictions hunting volumes of

sea animals decreased sharply. Reindeer herding traditional for the local

minorities also became unprofitable that influenced number of reindeer.

Nowadays development of “rural” and ethnographic tourism types is a general worldwide tendency. At present most countries have organized tours to districts, where the local communities preserved their tradition life styles and elements of material and spiritual culture , and first of all to districts of residence of small ethnic groups. Well-known and popular tours are so numerous and offered tourist products are so various that the conception of “rural tourism” has got a broad interpretation. For instance on many rural areas outdoor museums of peasant life have been created; also specially built tourist “villages” stylized to life of one or another epoch or nation are wide spread.

To make the point clear we would like to note that in this

presentation under “rural tourism” we only mean those tours

where travelers live among “live” bearers of the culture, which

live their traditional or just slightly changed life. At the same

time the tourists’ stay places and their travel purposes can be

various. For instance, a tourist can stay over night with a local

resident involved in the tourist business or in a rural tourist

hotel. His travel purpose might be acquaintance with the local

culture, recreation fishing or nostalgic memories of the

childhood.

The Murmansk region is not an exception from the general tendency of

the tourist industry development. Today the two rural administrative

districts: Lovezerskiy and Terskiy have already got centres of “rural” and

ethnographic tourism and firms offering tours for acquainting the rural and

traditional lifestyle of the aboriginal nations of the Kola Peninsula – the

Sami and Russian Pomors. In other municipalities having rural

settlements (Kandalakshskiy, Kovdorskiy and Kolskiy) there are plans to

establish such centres and firms.

The preconditions for tourism development on rural territories are common

for all countries of the world. Of them the most typical ones for the Murmansk

region are the following:

• Urbanization;

• Intensification of urban lifestyle;

• Worsening ecological situation in urban settlements;

• Increasing spiritual and cultural needs of the population, for instance the

need “to know their historical roots”;

• Growth of population living standard.

Tourism development level on rural territories and in places of national

minorities residences are determined by many factors, which act differently, that

is either favour or hamper tourism development.

The general factors influencing positively tourist

development on rural territories are as follows:

• An active policy of local authorities, availability of a

territorial development strategy;

• High culture level of the local community, friendly

attitudes to tourists;

• State or regional support to the tourist industry;

• Unique or considerable tourist resources;

• Comparative safety of the region (terrorist,

environmental, political, crime);

• Location of specially protected natural territories in the

municipality or nearby its borders;

• Availability of transport infrastructure corresponding to

the tourist service level;

• Others.

Only some of these factors are typical for the Murmansk

region. First of all, this is the unique in Russia tourist resource –

spiritual and material culture of the Russian Pomors, which

settled the Terskiy coast of the Kola Peninsula in 10-12

centuries. The Sami people settlements of Lovozero and

Krasnoshchelje are popular among international tourists.

The active policy of the Murmansk regional government on

formation of such non-traditional for the regional economy

industry as tourism is an important positive factor. During the

transition to the market economy the necessary institutional

infrastructure for the tourism industry development was created

in the region. At present in the region there are 64 tourist

companies, number of hotel beds increased over two times

compared to 1990. In particular in rural tourism places (Umba,

Lovozero) tourist information centres were opened, mini-hotels,

cafes, and camping sites were built; in order to attract tourists

advertising brochures and event activities had been prepared

and have been annually financed from the regional budget.

These are, for instance, the Sami Games, Marine Regatta,

Pomor Folk Festivals, etc.

It should be noted that nowadays the group of factors

negatively affecting development of rural tourism and other kinds

of tourism connected to it is quite numerous. Of these in the

Murmansk region the most negatively influencing factors are the

following:

• Depressive economic condition of rural municipality.

• Unfavorable demographic situation (prevalence of elderly

among the population)

• Lack of strategic documents of territorial and socio-

economic planning of a rural area.

• Inadequate financial resources for realization of tourist

projects of potential investors.

• Inefficient state support of the economy, including tourism

as one of its sectors.

• Lack of a scientific and methodological support of tourism

development in rural areas.

• Lack of skilled staff for the tourism industry in rural areas.

• Lack of advertising tourist tours.

• Negative attitude of most population to realization of tourist

projects and presence of tourist, and others.

Indicators of tourism development in the rural tourism

centres of the Murmansk region in 2008

Number of

collective

accommodation

places

Number of nights Persons

accommodated,

people

Incomes from

the

accommodation,

services ths.

roubles

Total for the

region44 140448

26273 164233,2

Lovozerskiy

district4 1292 213 18900,0

Terskiy

district6 2048 496 27471,5

Collective accommodation in January-June, 2008

Number of

collective

accommodation

places

Number of

nights

Number of

visitors, people

Incomes from the

accommodation

services, ths.

roubles

Total for the

region

26 4254 79190 296965,3

Lovozerskiy

district

6 89 885 1965

Terskiy

district

2 18 141 132,6

Among problems of rural and ethnographic tourism an important

one is the problem of scientific and methodological support of these

tourism kinds. In spite of the incomes, which local residents get from

tourism, some of them are still dissatisfied with presence of tourists as

the presently used tourism technologies violate the existing lifestyle.

Already now there are numerous examples when several years of

tourist exploitation resulted in the situation when the initial

attractiveness of an ethnographic or rural route disappeared or did not

correspond to requirements of the travelers themselves.

In our opinion, principles of tourist development of rural territories

should be scientifically grounded with the territorial specificity taken

into consideration. Among others the general principles should be the

following: “Non-interference in the environment” and “non-violence of

the customs and lifestyle of the local population”. These principles

should become the rules for tourists’ and tourist firms behavior on rural

areas.

Thank you for your attention!