Moscow Fresh: fresh ideas for tourists and sitizens
Moscow
City Committee for Tourism and Hotel Industry introduced a new so called travel project Moscow Fresh. “The project is
commenced by the young generation”, - noted the Head of the Commetee Sergey
Shpilko in his opening remarks at the Moscow Fresh presentation held within
MITF-
The
marketing plan proposes promoting a range of post-teen, for-profit public
organizations (mostly independent) operating under one same brand and incorporated
by a new creative approach to recreation of Moscovites and capital’s guests.
The project includes free
tours, quest tours, mystic, theatricalized, hiking routs, tours on
vintage-train, biking tours and others. Free regular tours about the city - Moscow
Free Tour, already started up for tourists. Every morning at 10.45, mo natter
rain or shine, a two-hours city walk tour covering all the major sites of the
city center, starts off at Cyril and Methodius monument at Kitay-Gorod metro
station. Young professional English-speaking guides confabulate passionately and
work on a tips-only basis. Tourists can book free tours at www.MoscowFreeTour.com.
Having discovered Moscow for the first time, most of them book paid excursion
programs to learn more about the city. The Sales Director of Moscow Free Tour
Copmany Artem Savinov believes that except for the facts, legends and stories,
tourists are interested in a shortsleeve communication with the guide and getting
the insider‘s view on where to eat, what to see, how to party.
Only in April 2012 more
than 600 people went on the free guided tours. Afterwards, 150 of them took
Moscow Free Tour paid programs. From 5 to
60 people attend free tours every day. Mr. Savinov noted that about 150-200
people attend free tours in such popular tourist cities as Berlin and Prague. With
ist present rates, Moscow can be compared to Budapest and Krakow where about
30-50 foreigners attend free tours daily. In the season 2012 Moscow Free Tour
plans to reach the level of 100 tourists for a free tour a day and 40 tourists
– for paid tours. At the same time there shoud be not more than 15 people per
one guide.
The Ambassador
of the world’s travel chain CouchSurfing Kirill Lysenko introduced an even more
facinating concept of Moscow’s hospitality. It’s an on-line service www.couchsurfing.org
that includes more than three million people through out 246 countries. The
original language of the web site is English, but there’s a Russian copy as
well. The couchsurfers’ communication gives travellres an oportunity to see the
country thourgh the eyes of a native as they are those, who are guides for
their guests. As a rule, travelers mind the tourist inviroment to be a set of
stereotypes and communicating with the natives is a different view that helps
to seize the habbits, culture, recognize people, and pick up the tolerance.
The idea of couchserfing
is to start an intercultural communication in a friendly and informal setting.
It’s mostly popular in the US and Europe with the participants speaking 330
languages and living in over 79 thousand cities. The project sprung up in 1992
and came to Russia in 1995. By now 77 thousand people are registed in Russian
project and more than 25 thousands of them are sitizens of Moscow and Moscow
region.
There’s a project planned
for Muscvites – City InSideOut. At the presentation it was introduced by its
author Helga Pataki. The City InSideOut project is first of all a communitee of people
who prefer creatively diverse natural history tours which include visiting
ancient courts, exploring life of bygone epochs, talking to inhabitants of
ancient houses. Mrs. Pataki spends the income on books, bagging a huge library
on the natural history.
Without any doubt, both
Muscovites and Moscow’s guests visit the Bulgakov’s House Museum which is
opened day and night. „About seven thousand people visit the museum monthly“ –
said the PR-manager of the museum Liya Turovskaya. People come for theatricalized
tours, romantic night walks, mysitcal trips about Bulgakov’s places described
in The Master and Margarita novel. The tour starts off at
Bulgakov’s House museum every Friday at 3.00p.m., 5.00p.m. and 7.00p.m.
The Street Adventures
project helps to take a look at streets, houses, monuments and museums from a
new angle. It’s an individual tour-game available at any day and any time with
the help of interactive sms-tasks. Having bought the ticket
at www.streetadventure.com,
you can begin your trip any time by yourself or as a part of a team. The
project was introduced by its coordinators Sergey Sobolev and Nikita Bogdanov
within the presentation in Gostiniy Dvor. They reported that the quest lovers
generate the flow of 150 thousand riddles solved, 1.5 players a week and 30
discovered places in an hour. With the help of Street Adventures’ sms, one can
not only explore
New uncommon tours and
creatively different routes will be promoted within Moscow Fresh with the assistance of RUTI. According to
Mr. Shpilko, they will be in demand after visa regime simplification when
low-cost flights will be available and people of different income, interests
and hobbies will travel to Moscow. On
the basis of internet proposals they will be able to choose low-priced programs
on their own. „Moscow Fresh mostly includes social travel projects, - explained
Mr. Shpilko. They shouldn’t be matched against classic group tours booked
through a tour operator“.