Analyzing the Russian Federation regions provision with tourist maps

Russia is a vast country with a wide variety of natural, cultural and historic places of interest. Therefore, domestic tourism is a favorite leisure activity for many citizens, and an appreciable source of income in many regions of the country. An important means of developing domestic tourism are maps. A good tourist map broadens the user`s horizons and attracts his attention to new previously unfamiliar places. In this regard, development of domestic tourism involves, among other things, increasing the volume of cartographic production and improving its quality. However, for further successful development of the industry, it is necessary to analyze its present and past experience. So, the authors assessed the provision of the RF entities with tourist maps. Hard copies from The Cartographic Collection of The Russian State Library were used as initial data. The number of published maps compiled for different regions were compared with the official reports of Federal State Statistics Service on the number of visiting tourists. The results showed that a significant part of the mentioned product in the territories was published in the 1980-1990s. Modern maps (published after 2010) cover approximately one third of them. So it turns out, that such maps are often compiled not for the entire area, but for its parts most interesting for tourists. In the opinion of the authors, such an approach contributes to artificial reduction of people’s horizons and underestimation of the region’s potential. No direct relationship was found between the volume of the tourist flow and the provision of the entity with maps. In conclusion, the authors propose a procedure for quantitative assessment of the matter considered, which will allow ranking the territories by the level of solving it. Fulfillment of this task is the immediate prospect of the study. In our plans there is an analysis of provision of the RF regions with digital and electronic tourist maps, including web ones