Development of Russian tourism in the contemporary social and ethnocultural conditions

Abstract

The author considers tourism as a relevant social-cultural phenomenon of contemporary Russia, which is important for economic development and establishing interethnic and interreligious balance in the cultural-axiological space of Russa. The author pays special attention to the migration processes in their connection with the situation in the tourism and hospitality industry and prospects for its development. Considering the global diversity of migration forms and types, the category of legal foreign labor migration is analyzed to clarify some substantial issues of external labor migration as having social and intercultural meanings. The author explains the efficiency of labor migrant flows in the renewing Russian touristic sphere; emphasizes the ethnocultural specificity of tourism and the ethnic character of migration; considers the regional situation through the host population’s perception of labor migrants and the native population’s assessment of the ambiguous role of foreign specialists in the formation of ethnic-cultural and civil identities in the multicultural Russian society. Tourism is defined as a significant economic and intercultural stabilizing factor contributing to the development of a tolerant environment and integrating external migrants into the host society. The article describes the relationship between the effective development of internal tourism and the progressive regulation of foreign labor migration. The analysis of the features of migration processes shows the changing nature of external labor migration due to objective socialeconomic factors, and the role of labor migrants in the formation of the all-Russian civil identity. The author insists on the correlation between the growing attractiveness of tourist sites and a stable and peaceful situation in the sphere of interethnic and interreligious relations, including between the autochthonous and allochthonous peoples of multinational Russia.