Sergey Shpilko presented Tourism Development Plan to the city’s government

The Chairman of Moscow Tourism Committee Mr. Sergey Shpilko reported to Moscow government for the first times and presented his plan of revival of the city’s tourism sector and the tourism development program for 2011. The committee’s priority tasks include the promotion of Moscow on domestic and international markets; a tourism marketing strategy is to be developed by the end of 2011. “Surely we won’t be able to solve all problems in one year. Our principal goal is to show Muscovites and their guests that Moscow has really taken the tourism in hand,” – said Sergey Shpilko.

These problems will be dealt with by means of so-called non capital-intensive projects that do not require significant time or funding and tend to establish comfortable conditions for tourists just like the most popular destinations all over the world. These include the construction of parking lots for tourist buses, implementing of the web portal for tourists, city call-center, renewal of the street information system (signs, pointers and lightboxes in Roman print, hotels classification and so on). “We estimated that these activities may be completed by the end of 2012 with a significant part finished this year” – claims Mr. Shpilko.

However this year only 287 million roubles were allocated for tourism development in 2011 – 16% less than in 2010. While the city’s government resolution signed by temporarily appointed Moscow Mayor Mr. Vladimir Resin on October 5, 2010 read that 590 million were to be appropriated. Nevertheless Mr. Shpilko believes that this will be enough to deal with the outstanding issues. “We will be able to save money by using more technologic solutions and involving extrabudgetary funds. We expect them to amount to 70-80% of budget funds” – pointed out Mr. Shpilko.

For the last 20 years no civilized network of tourist buses parking lots have been established, said Sergey Shpilko to Moscow authorities. He suggested defining the addresses, particularly within the historical center of the capital city. But before it is done buses still have to park somewhere and they will be doing so, paying significant “penalties” to the road police. That’s why we should at least legalize such stoppings in front of major tourist sited by the beginning of the high season.

It will be observed that the Mayor of Moscow Mr. Sergey Sobianin addressed this issue very attentively. “What do we need for that?” – went the Mayor. “To change traffic schedules, to cooperate with the city’s Transportation Department and Road Police and to clear it with the Federal Protective Service” – answered Mr. Shpilko. The Mayor immediately assigned his Deputy Mr. Nikolay Liamov to carry out a special meeting and to solve the buses parking problem. “All we need is the locations” – said Mr. Liamov and promised to fix everything else.