MODELING THE EFFECTS OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN NORTH EUROPEAN RUSSIA ON THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

The rapid development of the tourism industry in Russia highlights the need to assess the role of regions with strong tourism potential in achieving the national objective of increasing tourism’s contribution to economic growth. Among the most promising tourism macro-territories are the regions of the European North of Russia, which possess the conditions necessary to develop a wide range of tourism products capable of meeting the varied demands of tourists. This article examines the economic impact of tourism development in these regions on the Russian national economy. The study refines a methodological framework for grouping tourism-related economic activities and determining the structure of tourism output for calculations based on an input–output model. The proposed approach draws on official data from the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), original input–output tables, information from the Federal Tourism Planning Framework, and the SPARK-Interfax database. The methodology can also be applied to evaluate the economic effects of tourism development in other regions of Russia. Using an intersectoral model of the Russian economy with a dedicated “Tourism” sector, we estimate the direct, indirect, and induced multiplier effects, as well as the projected increase in total output by 2035 under three scenarios—inertial, realistic, and ambitious—reflecting different growth rates of tourist travel to the region and accounting for the structure of tourism activity. The scientific contribution of the study lies in the development of a modeling toolkit that enables the estimation of tourism output and tourism-generated value added for the Russian economy through the aggregation of enterprise-level data and the specification of the tourism-related share of each type of economic activity. This approach improves the objectivity and accuracy of the assessment. A promising direction for further research is the identification of sectors of economic specialization that are significant for regional economies and can be leveraged to extend domestic value chains through tourism-driven demand.