Regulatory aspects of pilgrimage and religious tourism at the present stage

The article discusses the issues of legal regulation of relations in the field of tourism, especially such varieties as religious tourism and pilgrimage. The article substantiates the conceptual distinction of these concepts, from which the need for different approaches and principles for the provision of appropriate tourist services comes. The author notes the significance of the impact of religious tourism on the economy of individual countries and regions of the world, and religious centers. In the article there is the analysis of conceptual regulation of tourist activity in the Russian Federation and it is considered a separate state program of development of tourism and pilgrimage. The main attention is focused on the lack of legal concept and practice of pilgrimage and, respectively, difficulties, arising in connection with these issues, in the organization of tourist trips and the provision of travel services of this thematic trend. Available in Russia legal conflict is that religious organizations have no right to organize pilgrim-ages, as they are equated to tourism and operated by tour operators. In the article, specific examples prove why firms are not always able to efficiently and fully right to organize and conduct a pilgrimage to the Holy places. We examine why the majority of pilgrimages, organized today, may be defined as an Amateur travel, not full tours. The author prove the relevance of the Association of Church organizations involved in the formation and promo-tion of pilgrimages, which would allow them to use legal mechanisms for liability insurance, obtain a Bank guar-antee in the formation of the tourist product, all these officially allow to implement tour operator activities. The results of the analysis of the quantitative composition of consumers of religious tourism and pilgrimage indicate that this product is in great demand and has great prospects for development in Russia. The attention is focused on the problem of the qualification of pilgrimage tours guides, training of specialized staff for sightseeing ensure of religious tourism and pilgrimage. The author substantiates the practical significance of the use of network forms of realization of educational programs for training specialists for the sphere of religious tourism and pilgrimage.