Several major Russian companies have announced projects for tourism infrastructure development in various Russian regions. Earlier, the Russian government announced a plan to develop the tourism industry in the country with a total amount of investment of up to 2.3 trillions rubles ($31 billion).
For example, businessman Vladimir Potanin, who owns a stake in Nornickel, one of the world’s leaders in nickel and copper mining, will invest 20 billion rubles in the Zatundra tourist complex in Taimyr, where the group’s production units are located.
The tourism cluster on the Kola Peninsula will receive 28 billion rubles. Interros, another Potanin company, reported in a press release on the construction of the Vasta Valley ski resort in Sochi at a cost of 80 billion rubles and the implementation of the Three Volcanoes project in the Goryachaya Sopka area, Kamchatka Krai at a cost of 40 billion rubles.
The project envisages further development of tourist infrastructure for health rehabilitation and downhill ski recreation in the mountain cluster of Sochi, the establishment of a balneology center with a sanatorium, a rehabilitation retreat, SPA hotels, and hydro-treatment facilities, as well as a ski center with several lifts and ski tracks with a total length of 80 km.
The total Nornickel project investment level is estimated at $1 bln, the company notes in a press release. The sources of financing will include the own and borrowed funds of the participating companies. Interros will act as an investor in the project and will mobilize further financing.
VEB.RF state corporation will take part in the feasibility study of the Dolina Vasta project, investment structuring, and financial consulting, as well as provide syndicated project financing. The Vasta Discovery development group, acting as a co-investor of the project, will undertake its implementation, design estimates, and operation of the facilities included in the project, and raise additional funds, the company notes in a press release.
The new project is based on the success of the Rosa Khutor resort, developed by Interros previously, which became the anchor site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
It is expected that the creation of Dolina Vasta will stimulate the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the region, lead to the creation of more than 2.5 thousand new jobs and partially relieve the Rosa Khutor resort, which has been operating at its capacity in recent years.
Another participant, Viktor Vekselberg’s Airports of Regions Holding, is involved in the reconstruction of the Yelizovo airport in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
The investments amount to 17.5 billion roubles. In early December, it became known about the plans of the joint venture of Viktor Vekselberg and Roman Trotsenko to invest in airports near Moscow, which are in “extremely distressing condition”.
Russia’s largest mineral fertilizer producer PhosAgro of the Guriev family is actively developing tourism in Kirovsk. The population of the area, where the company’s main assets are located, has shrunk by more than 40% since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In recent years, PhosAgro has invested about 5 billion rubles to develop the Bolshoi Vudyavr ski resort and other tourist infrastructure facilities.
The Sibur petrochemical holding company, whose major shareholders are Leonid Mikhelson and Gennady Timchenko, has invested more than 19 billion rubles in the construction of an airport in Tobolsk.
The Russian government aims to increase the domestic tourism market from 3.16 trillion in 2019 to 16.3 trillion in 2036.