 Representatives of tour business of Tuva went to Gornyi Altai to learn about the basics of eco-tourism and tourism in specially protected natural territories in Gornyi Altai. The opportunity for this exchange of experience was offered by the WWF project “Protected territories – for a living planet!”. The year 2010 has been declared the Year of Tourism in Tuva. Unfortunately, the development of tourism in Tuva is slowed down because of inaccessibility of the area, and of lack of infrastructure and experience in this type of work, along with weak advertisement of Tuva as a touristic product. However, for example, the neighboring republic Altai successfully arranged conditions in which the remote region (lack of aviation) turned into a Mecca of internal tourism, into a true tourist hallmark of Russia.
This is where, to republic Altai, the Tuvans went for lessons and experience. In the framework of the WWF project “Protected territories – for a living planet!”, from September 9 to 24, a touring seminar was organized for people from the Bai-Taiga and Mongun-Taiga districts of Tuva. Their partners in Republic Altai were representatives of a non-commercial partnership “Orion”, promising professionals of their work.
Tuvan delegation was faced with a program filled to the maximum. Within several days, they visited several districts, learned about different types of tourism, and saw how tourism was organized in protected territories. Republic Altai has a tremendous experience in organizing eco-tourism – more than 23% of their region consists of protected territories; there are 5 natural parks and more. Understanding how to organize active tourism in harmony with nature is a relevant task for Tuva as well. In 2009, the first natural park “Taiga” was established in Tuva, and a natural park “Shuiskiy” is planned in the near future.
The seminar participants visited the natural park “Chui-oozy”, which is famous for its petroglyphs complex Kalbak-Tash, and park “Uch-Enmek”, which contains many sacred places. It is especially here where they could see how ethno-tourism was set up (with tasting of national dishes, ecologic-ethnographic excursions, folklore programs).
On the Patmos island – the center of Russian Orthodox culture in Altai and the Center of Altai culture – the guests saw an example of spiritual ethno-cultural tourism with emphasis on organization of souvenir expositions. In the Ininskoye settlement the deputy of the chief, Oksana Yegorova shared her experience of many years of successful work in attracting unemployed population to new forms of activity – manufacture of souvenirs and providing of tourism services.
The visit to Teletskoye Lake offered a chance to see the organization of water tourism – very relevant type of recreation for Tuva, which has a wide network of mountain rivers and lakes.
The people of the Chemal district shared their experience in organization of village hostels; this is precisely the place where the network of so-called “green houses” originated in its time. The rich experience accumulated by this time, various traditions and canons of behavior in the business are reflected in the recently published manual “Green House” organization of village tourism”, which was given to every participant after the end of the practical seminar.
A round table discussion after the trip allowed a summary of the results. The seminar participants spoke confidently about their increased understanding of how to develop ecological village tourism and associated directions in Tuva.
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