Strategic planning of the tourism development in small cities and rural territories as a tool for the development of the regional economy

¹ Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University, Polytechnicheskaya 29, 195251, St. Petersburg, Russia
² Institute of Economics of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, A. Nevskogo 50, 185030, Petrozavodsk, Russia

^* Corresponding author: m.fyodorova@gmail.com

Abstract

The paper covers the theory of the digital and the sharing economy. Since tourism industry is considered to be the one of the simplest and fastest industries to make profit, the paper argues that the realm of those “new economies” proposes new opportunities to develop sustainable tourism at rural territories and in towns. As far as the reality of the digital and the sharing economy lightens the process of capitalizing the natural, cultural, intellectual and human resources of any territory, we propose the approach to develop tourism industry at rural territories and towns as a tool to raise the level and quality of locals’ life. The objective of the paper is to research the existent apps promoting tourist and other services in the chosen Districts of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation, to propose a tool to integrate the tourism industry of those Districts into the digital and the sharing economy of the World, and to calculate whether the use of this tool is cost-effective.