The new 2019-2025 federal targeted program for expanding the national tourist industry may include 15 new promising tourist destinations, including the Russian Arctic, Altai and Primorye, TASS reports, quoting the draft federal targeted program. The document stipulates a set of measures to establish national tourism clusters from 2019.

"The selection of regional projects promoting the development of the types of tourism that reflect the specialization of the 15 promising travel destinations should become the program's defining feature," the document notes.

The draft concept lists such destinations as the Amur River, Altai, Lake Baikal, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea coast, the Primorye Territory, Kamchatka and Sakhalin, the Russian Baltic region, the North Caucasus, the Russian Arctic, the Volga region, the Great Volga Route, Central Russia and the Urals. Each destination has its own specialization. The Urals destination, which includes the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, focuses on industrial and military-patriotic tourism. The Great Volga Route, comprising the Samara, Ulyanovsk and Penza regions, the Chuvash Republic and several other areas, offers river cruises complemented with the regions' cultural programs.

Two state funding and program investment scenarios are possible. Under the first scenario, there are plans to support the infrastructure development of all Russian regions' tourist industry.