I. Metshin: "It was nice to hear that our tourist "landing" did a good job"

(Kazan City KZN.RU, April 30, Zilya Gayfi). Major tour of the megacities of Russia, in which Kazan delegation headed by the Deputy Head of the municipality Eugenia Lodvigova presented the tourism potential of the city, completed. For 1.5 months the delegation visited 8 cities: Ulyanovsk, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa, Volgograd, Novosibirsk, Perm. Eugenia Lodvigova told about the results of the trip at the Business Monday in the City Hall.

According to her, the main purpose of the tour was to declare the capital of Tatarstan. "Development of domestic tourism is in our priority, and we wanted to show other cities that it is great to travel to Kazan, and we have something to offer," - E.Lodvigova said. The delegation consisted of 20 representatives of tour operators and excursion centers, tourist objects, restaurateurs and hoteliers, who had the opportunity to exchange experience with colleagues from other regions of the country.

On the eve of May holidays the next large influx of tourists is expected to Kazan, and, according to Eugenia Lodvigova, press tour results will not keep waiting. "Today Kazan officially opens the tourist season, and we hope that we will beat all records and significantly increase the index number of tourists. Results of the press tour should play a huge role, thanks to it we held a presentation of Kazan in Russian cities under the program of tourism development in Kazan 2016-2018 years. We were careful in selecting the cities - no city was accidental, we have covered million cities, including those that will host the World Cup 2018, as well as cities, with which Kazan is working in various fields, and according to the results of the tour will cooperate in the field of tourism", - she explained.

Note that all of the meeting with a presentation of tourist potential of Kazan took place at the municipal level. "Without exception, everybody noted creativity, brilliance and professionalism of the presentation. We have proved that we are not standing still, we have opened our city for colleagues from other regions in a new way. At the same time, every city has something that is worth to learn for  us. For example, in Perm river tourism is superbly developed, a unique zoo is opened in Novosibirsk, in Samara promenade is beautifully landscaped, in Yekaterinburg interesting municipal museums work", - the deputy head said.

According to Eugenia Lodvigova, during a press tour the most often question to the delegation was how Kazan managed to succeed in the tourism industry in such a short period of time. "We focus on tourism, we can be proud of Kazan. Thank to the Mayor of Kazan for supporting, to representatives of the tourist business, who work in partnership with us. Tourists have already arrived to see some of the objects that we presented, and delegations to share experiences were taken. We plan to sign agreements on cooperation in tourism with all the cities. New tourist season begins, and our main task is to take tourists whom we invited and who chose Kazan adequately"- Eugenia Lodvigova set the task.

Ilsur Metshin thanked Kazan delegation headed by Eugenia Lodvigova for their work and noted that it is important to get feedback. " We have already received the positive feedback about our work in the tourism sector in Yoshkar-Ola at the meeting of the Association of the Volga region cities, and in Moscow our organized work was noted. Thank mayors who treated my request with respect and helped to organize the tour. It is great to hear such comments. Material about Kazan was made very good, colorful presentations were noted by many people. Among the artists it is very noble to praise others, notice their victories and achievements. Mayors community is no exception. It was nice to hear that our tourist "landing" did a good job, made a positive image of Kazan and caused the desire to visit it. This is an important step and, we hope, just the beginning,"- the Mayor said.

The Mayor pointed out that it is important to integrate travel business of the cities, then it will bring more results. According to the Mayor of Kazan, presentation of Kazan tourist potential is necessary to be made not only in the megacities, but also in smaller cities - with a population of 500 and 300 thousand, since it is also a growth factor for the tourism industry of our city.