July 2, 2013. Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeniy Kuivashev approved of the main directions chosen for the development of tourism in the region through clusters.

The Governor’s Information Policies Department reports that up to 60% of the Region’s area is expected to be involved in the tourism industry. At the moment, only about 20% are used, this 20% being mainly Yekaterinburg and places along Yekaterinburg-Nizhniy Tagil freeway.

‘We definitely need a totally new share of incoming tourism on the market. The Mid-Urals have every opportunity to show the entire range of tourist attractions it has and to reveal its potential. We need to create tourist routes and good quality infrastructure so that people come here not just for a specific event but for a while, and we could show them everything the Urals have to offer,’ the Governor said.

Concentrating all the resources in a few promising projects, creating clusters, and developing a set of measures for creating the area’s unique selling points for tourists will involve over 40 cities and towns in the industry. This will also help to eliminate the imbalance between the incoming and outcoming tourism (the current ratio is 20/80).

About 12 clusters are expected to be set up. They will include family recreation zones, places of cultural/historic interest, nature’s reserves, sanatoriums, and eco-tourism areas. The City of Yekaterinburg and the Urals’ Spiritual Center will make up separate clusters.

The Information Policies Department says that tourism development results in a great multiplicative economic effect. According to experts’ estimates, every ruble spent in the tourist industry secures three rubles in the adjacent industries and facilitates the creation of new jobs.