A new approach to assessing the potential of geological tourism development: the case of Mountainous Adygeya

Geological tourism is an innovative direction, which has gained popularity in the past years. Russia and, particularly, its southern regions possess rich natural heritage, which constitutes potential for this specialized kind of tourism. The aim of the present work is development of a new approach for assessing of the potential of geological tourism development in a given territory. It is tested by example of Mountainous Adygeya - a territory where unique geological phenomena concentrate. The methods proposed earlier are imperfect due to ignorance of the factor of demand for geological tourism services and focus on only resources. The new approach is based on the urgency of balance between the supply (resources and possibilities of their exploitation) and the demand (interest from the side of potential tourists). Its essence is the scorebased evaluation of geotourist attractions by several criteria. These include object's value, its use for the purposes of tourism. development of student excursions in the course of educational practices, and state of infra- and suprastructure are chosen. The presence of well-understood and popularized themes (attractors) in these sites is related to the criteria of demand. In the considered territory, these themes are «The world of dinosaurs» and «Precious stones». The application of the resource-attractor approach to Mountainous Adygeya allows to register the moderate potential of geological tourism development. 11 from 15 geotourist attractions located in different parts of this territory are suitable for realization of the related initiatives, and three of them demonstrate high potential. The presence of the above-mentioned attractors in many sites is useful for the development of excursion routes.