Domestic Russian tourism in the focus of credible print media

The paper reviews the results of a study of the publishing activity of 20 most-cited print media in Russia on the subject of tourism. The relevance of the study lies in the necessity of obtaining reliable data on how the potential of credible media is used to promote the tourism opportunities of Russia. The initial idea that the most-cited media are the most reliable sources of information as most readers believe, has formed the basis for constructing a hypothesis about the activation of Russian tourists’ interest in visiting Russian tourist centers with the relevant information policy of print media that inspires their trust. In order to obtain reliable data on the situation typical for the current period of time, an original content analysis technique was developed and applied on the printed texts of various genres, published in one calendar year. The results of the study led to the conclusion that the resource of influence of the Russian print media (with a total coverage of the target audience of more than 17 million people) on the readership in the context of promoting Russia’s tourism opportunities is not fully used (only 40% of the analyzed media regularly refers to the subject). Practical use of the results for each of the analyzed media and general conclusions on active/inactive publications and the influence of the media on certain age and social groups of readers are possible in the context of implementing programs to promote Russian domestic tourism, carried out at the state, regional and local levels by authorized project teams.