The Baikal International Tourist Forum started off in Buryatia. Its participants include delegates from Russia, Germany, Spain, China, Mongolia, Serbia and Korea. Representatives of the Fund for Protection of Lake Baikal, Vice-President of Fund Bair Tsyrenov and a member of Scientific Board of Fund Arnold Tulokhonov took an active part in the forum.

The main objective of the forum is to create a discussion platform where authorities, tourist business and public representatives will be able to engage in constructive dialogues in respect to interregional and international cooperation in tourism and also to discuss topical issues and development prospects for tourism in Asia-Pacific Region.

Bair Tsyrenov made a presentation at a plenary session at the Tourism Forum held as part of the International Conference on the Topical Issues and Development Prospects for Tourism in APR. He outlined the main areas of investments in the Baikal Region and the Irkutsk Region and encouraged effective cooperation between all the partners and participants of the forum.

A separate session was dedicated to the Development of Ecological Tourism and moderated by a member of the Scientific Board of the Fund Arnold Tulokhonov. “Overall, the session was successful. We discussed the main issues regarding promotion of tourism at Baikal and how to minimize the negative impact on the local environment. We studied all the information from organisations and establishments dealing with in tourism at Baikal. The participants of the session mentioned a number of positive and negative tendencies in tourism business. The main issues were the lack of general database on tourism in Baikal region, weak self-organization of Baikal resorts and lack of initiative in development of ecological tourism, which is crucial for better tourist traffic,” said A.Tulokhonov.

Experts from the Government of Republic Buryatia claim that the tourist traffic to the Republic will increase four times to 2 million a year by 2017. For this purpose authorities plan to develop business, beach, eco-, religious and mountain tourism. To limit the uncontrollable anthropogenic impact on Lake Baikal and to reduce any harm to minimum are the most essential tasks in these undertakings