COMMON CHARACTERISTICS IN THE ORGANIZATION OF TOURIST SPACE WITHIN MOUNTAINOUS REGIONS: ALTAI-SAYAN REGION (RUSSIA)

Abstract

Tourism in mountainous regions is a rapidly developing industry in many countries. The aims of this paper are to examine global tourism patterns in various mountainous regions and to define the factors that differentiate tourism development in the mountainous environments from tourism development in the lowlands. The authors have taken a regional approach to examining these patterns. They consider the mountainous areas to be a system and recommend analyzing them accordingly. The features of mountainous tourist systems and their associated hierarchies are defined in the study. The study involved creating a diagram to depict the differentiation in the tourist space and to identify the types of tourism represented in mountainous areas throughout the world. Reviewing and analyzing studies focusing on tourism in the mountainous areas has allowed the authors to distinguish common features of mountainous regions that influence the organization of tourism space. The authors suggest creating hierarchies to represent the mountainous tourist regions and the trans-boundary mountainous tourist system. The Altai-Sayan region is featured as one example of a mountainous area that has its own distinguishing characteristics and that faces unique challenges in the development of its tourism industry. The authors suggest that it is possible to identify trans-boundary mountainous tourist systems and tourist regions, specifically in the Altai-Sayan region. The study identifies the main tourist centers and types of transport infrastructure that determine tourist space in this region.

Keywords

• Russia
• Altay-Sayan region
• mountainous region
• regional approach
• tourist system
• types of tourist regions
• tourist space