Creation and development of interregional tourist projects: a comparative analysis of the “Sovereign's road” and “Flax road” projects

The article discusses the methodological and organizational foundations of the formation and implementation of interregional projects and routes in tourism. The authors consider two main dimensions of interregional tourism projects and products, correlating with "routing" and "theme". The "routing" is the degree of attachment to individual objects on the ground and the order of their visits by tourists. The “theme” is the degree of compliance of all objects with a certain field of knowledge/activity. Regarding this the authors describe several popular Russian projects and routes. The experience of creation and development of the interregional tourist route "Sovereign's Road" (now having the status of a national tourist route) and the interregional cultural and tourist project "Flax Road", which are different types of interregional projects ("route" and "project"), besides being at different stages of their development cycle, has been studied. The article compare these projects according to a number of important criteria, such as the types of objects and territories included in the project, the availability of rules (standards) for joining the project, the availability of specialized operators of the products offered, the availability of a website and promotion strategy, the availability of state support and a number of others.