Strategic Master Planning of Territories for Promising Tourism Development (Case for the Macro-Region “Russian Baltic”)

Aim : Development of proposals for improving scientific and methodological approaches and mechanisms of prospective tourism and recreational areas spatial planning management. Methodology. The study is based on the postulate that strategic planning and territorial planning in Russia are two different types of planning. The strategic master planning, which became to be popular in recent years, is a mechanism that allows combining these two types of planning for territories, the economic development of which is included in the primary plans of state authorities. In this regard, our study is based, firstly, on the analysis of the legal framework that determines the development of promising tourist territories, namely: the Federal Law "On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation", which establishes the legal basis for strategic planning in the Russian Federation and determines the documents of strategic planning at the federal level; the Strategy for Socioeconomic Development of the Russian Federation, its initiatives and activities aimed at implementing long-term objectives; the Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation; the Strategy for Spatial Development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030; industry documents of strategic planning of the Russian Federation. Secondly, the authors relied on existing approaches to strategic master planning in general, as well as on the author's application of this tool to more than 150 tourism and recreation clusters, for example, the tourism and recreation complex of the Ramensky municipal district; during the examination of research and development work on the development of the Strategy for the Development of Tourism in the city of Moscow, the development of proposals for the diversification of economic activity of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with the aim of effectively using the tourism and recreation potential of the regions based on the application of the mechanism of cross-border cooperation, using the example of the Kaliningrad region, and a number of others. Results . It was revealed that the main problem of master planning is the weak application of an interdisciplinary approach and a conceptual vision of strategic sustainable development of the territory. It has been established that scientific research methods should be based on a systems approach that allows combining two key approaches to master planning: recreational-geographical (based on the theoretical principles of recreational geography, which is based on the concept of tourist-recreational systems) and strategic management of territorial objects (based on socio-economic priorities and the implementation principles of long-term sustainable development of the territory). Research implications . The systematization of knowledge in the field of strategic master planning, carried out in this work, will reduce the risks of administrative errors in the planning of territories of priority tourism development (e.i. overtourism or, conversely, lack of demand for constructed objects; potential environmental conflicts or conflicts of nature management, etc.). The competent application of the theory of tourism and recreational systems, principles of formation of a tourist and recreational framework of the territory for subsequent functional zoning in combination with regulatory and management approaches can increase the efficiency of using budgetary funds for the development of tourism and recreational potential, the formation of a comfortable environment for guests of the territory and local residents in order to optimize the volume, structure and geography of tourist flows. The practical significance of the study lies in the developed recommendations for master planning of the tourist macroterritory "Russian Baltic", represented by single subject of the Russian Federation – the Kaliningrad Region. The authors recommend taking into account the risks of tourist and recreational development of the territory with the allocation of zones of existing and potential conflicts.