Tourist flow to Murmansk increased by 20%

According to preliminary data, the number of tourist that visited the Murmansk region in 2011 will increase by 20%, compared to 2010, when the tourist flow amounted to 260 thousand people, including 35 thousand foreigners.

According to Ms. Zoya Efimova, head of the external relations department in the Murmansk region ministry of economic development, there will be an increase in cruise tourists in the upcoming years. “This will happen because many foreign cruise ships from USA, UK, Germany and Finland will make port calls”, - she explained. At the moment the city is visited by 3-6 ships every summer. Tourists come to marvel at the long polar days. Murmansk already received 12 requests for cruise port calls for 2012.

Through the program called “Arctic Harbor” the region is planning to create a modern infrastructure of tourist services, reconstruct the Murmansk train station and build an embankment. In 2012 a new tourist route will be introduced, it will feature the Kola Peninsula, adjacent regions and Finland.

At the same time the building of “Russian Lapland” project, which was announced by the administration in March 2011, is being delayed due to some difficulties with investments. The new tourist cluster should contain an “open-air museum”, an ethno complex “Lappish Village”, two ski- resorts – “Vudyavchorr” and “Lovchorr”, and a gondola lift on Mt. Aykuayvenchorr in Kirovsk

The project should be completed by 2016, and the investments are expected to reach 4.8 billion roubles. According to an agreement, signed with the investor, his share in the project was more than 530 million roubles. But later he changed his mind. That said, the “Russian Lapland” is part of the program of social-economic development of the northwest region by 2020, approved by Vladimir Putin.