Tourism in Russia’s Altai Republic: Indigenous perceptions

Abstract

ABSTRACT The government of Russia’s Altai Republic encourages tourism for local socio-economic development. The year 2020 brought 2.2 million visitors to the Altai Republic, an ecologically pristine but economically depressed region, with a population of just 220,200. Ethnic Russians constitute a majority of the Altai Republic’s citizenry, but Indigenous groups make up 34 percent of the population. Using surveys and interviews, this study analyzed perceptions of tourism among four rural Indigenous groups in 2018–2019 concerning maintaining local culture, improving the standard of living, and preserving the environment. Survey participants generally did not agree that tourism helps them to maintain local culture or to improve the local standard of living, although interview respondents gave positive and negative viewpoints. Both those surveyed and those interviewed expressed overwhelming concern for the preservation of the natural environment and alarm regarding illegal and excessive hunting by outsiders.