Deputy Director General of Kavkaz.RF Rustam Tapaev spoke about the prospects for the development of the all-season mountain resorts Elbrus and Veduchi at the 29th international exhibition of tourism and hospitality industry MITT-2023. The presentation was held as part of the session “Mountain resorts of the North Caucasus. All-season opportunities.”
The meeting was also attended by Minister of Tourism of the Chechen Republic Muslim Baitaziyev, President of the National Union of the Hospitality Industry Aleksey Volkov, AlpIndustriya, Wild Trail, representatives of FUN&SUN and Alean tour operators and the Travel.stat service. The speakers discussed trends, difficulties and prospects for the development of tourism in the North Caucasus Federal District and paid special attention to the resorts “Elbrus” in Kabardino-Balkaria and “Veduchi” in Chechnya. Among the main issues on the agenda are plans to create eco-trails, event-based tourism and sports development, opportunities for all-season recreation, and a strategy for promoting resorts using IT technologies. “The ski resorts of the North Caucasus have a huge tourist potential. And we strive to maximize their opportunities by attracting new residents, developing tourist services and infrastructure, creating new recreation facilities not only in the winter season, but also in the off-season. In the future, this will allow us to maximize the number of tourists and make the tourist flow more even throughout the year,” said Rustam Tapaev, Deputy General Director of Kavkaz.RF. To develop the all-season resorts of Kavkaz.RF, together with the regions, it is working to launch a network of ecological trails of various levels of difficulty in the Elbrus and Veduchi areas. The total length of the routes is more than 60 km. It is planned to equip them in June-October of this year. Particular attention is paid to holding mass sports events aimed at promoting not only the tourism, but also the investment potential of the regions of the North Caucasus. Work is also underway to improve traditional activities – trekking, cycling and jeep tours, excursions to historical, cultural and natural attractions. As the participants of the session noted, local tour operators and guides are interested in improving the quality of their services – recently the demand for all-season vacations has been increasing. Tourists come for event, sports, gastronomic and ecological tourism, but one of the difficulties is the lack of accommodation. “Veduchi has a request for holding events. It is gratifying that the resort's investors are proactive and are already creating new accommodations. Now we are actively building a hotel with 200 rooms, with conference rooms. We plan to hand it over in September-October,” said the Minister of Tourism of the Chechen Republic, Muslim Baitaziyev. In total, more than 800 placements are planned to be created at Veduchi by the end of 2024. New hotels will also appear on Elbrus – by the end of 2030, residents of the resort will create more than five thousand beds.