KIROVSK /Murmansk Region/, March 25. /TASS/. Tourist infrastructures in the Russian Federation's Northern regions lag behind the growing demand for domestic Arctic tourism. This problem will be solved as part of the program to develop the Arctic backbone cities, Minister for Development of the Far East and Arctic Alexey Chekunov said during a business trip to the Murmansk Region.

The Murmansk Region reports a 10% growth of visiting tourists in 2023 - to 600,000 guests.

"We are now in a location that demonstrates clearly the booming growth of domestic tourism. The growth is almost 5 times, and we can see that the infrastructures are not quite keeping up. A program initiated by President Vladimir Putin to develop the Arctic zone's backbone cities will be aimed at solving this problem. The national domestic tourism, the task set by the president, should also double its share in the regions' national product," the minister said.

The Russian Federation's Arctic regions will be able to meet the demand both from domestic and international tourists, he added. The main task is to provide high-quality and modern travel services.

"Here we can see a correlation between the Arctic and the Far East. We have investors implementing major projects here and there. Transport accessibility is important here, so we will first of all provide for the development of infrastructures - to have high-quality airports, high-quality runways and roads. The rest is what the nature has created. Here [in the Arctic] there are stunning, globally recognized unique beauties that are known all over the world, so our task is to create appropriate infrastructures, and we will have these solutions into the program to develop the backbone cities," he said in conclusion.