Penza, 3 September 2015. PenzaNews. The volumes of commercial tourism services in the Penza region are growing by 10-15% year to year, thanks to a thoughtful advertising, transportation and logistics strategy, announced the head of tourism office in the regional Deparment of Culture and Archive Alexei Ukolov during the September 3 roundtable discussion on tourism development held at the Lermontov library.

“The development of tourism in the Penza region faces limited natural resources. We have no geysers, no rivers, no Black Seas. No waterfalls. Very few navigable rivers, unfortunately. But we are rich in educational tourism, our main area of income. And, of course, there is religious tourism, currently the most popular in terms of numbers of tourists,” he pointed out.

According to Alexei Ukolov, the tourism industry is receiving active support from such educational institutions as the multidisciplinary college and the Penza State University, that are providing education courses for relevant professions.

“It is nice to see many new tourism bases under construction. We have 19 of them three years ago; now there are 32. Six more are under construction. Many new health resorts have appeared. The guided tour industry is actively developing. We see the appearance of a number of new trends that help develop event-based tourism: for example, the annual hang-glider festival in the Gorodische area increased in popularity,” he added.

The head of the tourism office also stressed the importance of local business in the tourism attraction field.

“You can feel the level of cooperation between the authorities and the businessmen that brings more money to the Penza region budget,” Alexei Ukolov said.