Baikal tour operators get ready for mass tourism from Japan

ULAN-UDE, April 15 (Itar-Tass) - Baikal tour operators making part of
the Metropol group of companies have started work on organizing tours to
Lake Baikal for Japanese citizens, Metropol representative Bair Tsyrenov
said here on Friday.
According to him, the company will make this year market research
worth 300,000 euros, which will help Baikal tour operators "to learn about
expectations of Japanese tourists from visiting the lake and develop tour
products on the basis of that".
An advertising campaign in Japan is scheduled for the next year, while
in 2013 tour operators of Metropol intend to regularly receive tourists
from Japan at the Baikalskaya Gavan (Baikal Harbour) tourism zone on the
eastern coast of the lake.
Four companies making part of the Metropol group of companies are
residents of the tourism zone. They will build a multi-functional complex
with a congress hall, a ship terminal, a yacht club and other facilities
worth all in all about one billion roubles.
The project of that tourism centre is already being designed by the
Japanese Nikken Sekkei company. The Russian Putnik Sibir company, which is
also in the Metropol group of companies, has signed an agreement on design
work with that architectural-engineering company from Japan. The agreement
had been signed before a massive quake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11.
However, the natural disaster has not disrupted business cooperation
plans. Preliminary agreements on the introduction of Japanese
energy-saving and innovation technologies in the construction of the
international tourism centre on the Baikal Lake were reached in Tokyo
within the framework of the fourth Russian-Japanese investment forum in
November 2010.
The special tourism zone Baikal Harbour is being set up in Buryatia
150 to 180 kilometres away from Ulan-Ude. In 2016, Buryatia expects to
receive at least 1.8 million tourists a year, which is five times more
than at the present moment.
It will offer services in the amount of up to 13 billion roubles a
year. The first stage of its infrastructure was commissioned at the end of
2010. Nine residents have been already registered there.