Industrial tourism: from curiosity to career guidance. Industrial tourism Factory of Christmas decorations "Yolochka", Vysokovsk

In recent years, the travel industry in Russia has been actively developing. One confirmation of this and an important incentive for the industry was the 21st FIFA World Cup, which attracted over 5 million tourists from all over the planet to our country. By 2025, according to official plans, the share of tourism in the national GDP will increase from 3.47 to 5%. Against the backdrop of the depreciation of the ruble and the development of supply in the domestic market, more and more Russians are traveling around Russia. New formats of recreation are emerging, including socially responsible, environmental and industrial tourism.

Over the past decade, industrial tourism has grown from a hobby of a limited circle of people to an independent direction, reaching such a level of popularity that the state paid attention to it. On May 16, the head of Rostourism, Oleg Safonov, said that the authorities plan to begin the development of this area this year. According to a study by specialists from Orenburg State University, today the Volga Federal District has become the leader in Russia in the number of regions where industrial excursions are regularly held.

The largest category of industrial tourists is young people, primarily schoolchildren and students. Often, visiting plants and factories helps them decide on their future career. But, of course, people of all ages go to industrial facilities—ordinary consumers, among whom the food and automobile industries are in greatest demand. As well as journalists and bloggers, whose publications form the company’s image.

As the Steel Was Tempered

The United Metallurgical Company (UMK) decided to satisfy the curiosity of industrial tourists and developed three excursion routes for the enterprise: “The Birth of Large-Diameter Pipe”, “Amazing Transformations of Steel” and “The World of Hot Wheels”. Thus, in Vyksa you can see the full cycle of rolled steel and the process of manufacturing “Russian” size pipes, from which the Nord Stream, Power of Siberia and many others gas pipelines are built. In addition, here you can watch how wheels for railway and subway trains are made from hot metal in the wheel-rolling shop.

The plant also made sure that excursions were accessible to guests with hearing impairments: guided tours are offered in Russian sign language.

Another attraction of VSW is the painting “Vyksa 10,000”. This is a mural - a monumental painting on the facade of the Stan-5000 industrial complex. The painting, created by street artist Misha Most as part of the Art-Ravine urban art festival, covers an area of ​​10,800 square meters. The work was included in the record books of Europe and Russia. Misha Most worked for 45 days to create the mural, spending more than 5 tons of primer and paint. He depicted 6 scenes from the life of an enterprise - from research to creation, from idea to result.

They also conduct excursions around Vyksa itself: in the city you can see more than 90 art objects.

The road to childhood

Within an hour and a half, guests of the enterprise can see all stages of ice cream production: how ingredients are delivered and mixed, freezing, maturing, molding, how waffle cups are filled, how popsicles are covered with icing, how products are packaged for sale. There is an opportunity to take a master class on decorating ice cream. On weekdays, the factory offers paid group excursions for schoolchildren and adults. And on Saturdays individual visitors can come. Excursions are adapted for people with special needs.

Sommelier beginner course

The plant, founded near the picturesque southern Lake Abrau in 1870, regularly hosts tourists and industry professionals. Here in 2017 passed VII All-Russian Winemakers Summit.

The “wine tour” opens with a film showing about the plant and its history, after which guests are taken to the wine cellars, while explaining to them the intricacies of the complex preparation of champagne wines - from planting vineyards to bottling the finished drink. The tunnels were created back in the 19th century by Prince Lev Golitsyn. The passages stretch 5.5 kilometers underground. At the factory you can take a photo in front of hundreds of bottles, see the process of making champagne in modern workshops, take a short sommelier course, visit the tasting room and the company store. However, children will have to be sent to the playroom during the excursion, since only adults are allowed to enter the event.

Become a shipwright

The shipyard, together with the “Pro Mir” career guidance center, conducts career guidance excursions for schoolchildren and allows them to visit even closed areas of the shipyard. For six hours, guests are introduced to the history and traditions of Russian shipbuilding, as well as the economics of the industry. Schoolchildren will learn how the Putilov shipyard, later renamed Severnaya, developed, and most importantly, they will see how modern warships are built.

The collections of the Northern Shipyard Museum, which is visited by excursionists, contain more than 3 thousand exhibits, 200 of which are considered cultural monuments: these are rare archival documents and photographs, awards and personal belongings of employees, models of ships and vessels built by the plant.

See the energy of water

The oldest operating hydroelectric power station in Russia is more than 90 years old: it was the first to be built within the framework of the GOELRO plan. Today it is not only an important object of regional infrastructure, but also a tourist attraction. Travelers often take photographs of the historical building on the Volkhov River. But not everyone knows about the opportunity to study an object from the inside and find out how the energy of water movement is converted into electricity.

The hydroelectric power station hosts schoolchildren and students as part of educational programs, journalists, as well as excursion groups. They visit the house-museum of Heinrich Graftio, the builder of the first Soviet hydroelectric power stations, and production workshops. Guests are told in detail about ways to minimize the negative impact on the river biocenosis.

Industrial tours

The buyer is interested in seeing how they make what he would like to buy. Industrial tourism is the organization of regular tourist tours to existing (or once operating) industrial enterprises. Since industrial tourism is an interdisciplinary phenomenon, there are almost no studies devoted to it. All there is is a huge number of examples of cities that successfully exploit tourists in their enterprises. In France alone, 1,700 companies hosted tourists at their production sites. The leader here is the Rance tidal power plant, which welcomes 300,000 tourists annually. And in England, 400,000 people visit the Cadberry chocolate factory. In Spain, wine tours are becoming commonplace, in France - cheese tours, in the Netherlands - flower tours...

However, American companies were the pioneers in industrial tourism. A precedent occurred when the Jack Daniel's factory opened its doors to tourists in 1866, when it opened itself. Today there are very few businesses left in the United States that do not accept tourists. For every serious company - be it a car assembly plant, a sawmill or an airport - it is considered bad manners not to invite tourists, this is a threat to the company's reputation. The Americans can be understood: in the absence of a deep historical heritage, the Present must be made into a spectacular and educational “heritage”. In Germany, on the contrary, the emphasis is on the post-industrial motif: for example, abandoned coal and salt mines in the Ruhr, shipyards from the Second World War. Although, of course, many existing enterprises are open. The leader in attendance is the BMW plant in Wolfsburg, Bavaria (260 thousand tourists per year).

Not only the production of goods, but also the production of services can be turned into a show without compromising the production process. You just need to want it - and foresee the direct benefits of it.

Why is this interesting for tourists? Modern tourists are “place collectors”. They, victims of global acceleration, are no longer fully satisfied with the standard tourist assortment - sea beaches and art galleries. They are increasingly striving for complex experiences - combining relaxation with educational purposes, improving their health with excursions, attending a business conference with sports activity and sightseeing. A tour of the enterprise is just what you need. A familiar city reveals itself from an unusual side. Products that are produced, as they say, online, you can immediately touch (and in some cases make yourself), try, try on, buy. Industrial tourism is especially in demand among those traveling with children. They wonder what happened to the ice cream and chocolate before they got to the supermarket.

I suspect there is another important side effect. Transforming production into a tourist attraction stimulates the company to improve the corporate climate and labor relations. Cleaning workshops, clean work uniforms, presentable appearance of equipment and much more, which the average Russian director did not see the point of before, become meaningful. And workers’ motivation changes when they are looked at as if they were a museum treasure. So, the company receives consumer loyalty and effective brand support. And the turnover of souvenir shops located at points where excursions end is 30% higher than in other points with similar products.

Finally, it goes without saying how the city budget benefits from stimulating sales of city goods and services. But, in addition, cities acquire new brands, new unexpected and attractive elements of the image, as well as a larger number of tourists - this “walking money” of our time. Only in cities there is infrastructure for industrial tourism - transport, communications, trade, hotels, cafes. In addition, excursions to operating enterprises are, as a rule, an additional “load” to other tourist magnets, which are again concentrated in cities. Moreover, the most popular among tourists are objects that are brands of specific cities. For example, the port complex in Rotterdam or the Rolex factory in Zurich. The city itself ensures the popularity of the brand.

In Russia, excursions to Moscow confectionery factories have been famous since Soviet times. Other, new examples are emerging. However, these are rather exceptions to the rule. Moreover, all this is done clearly without passion, as a tribute to fashion and without taking into account the multilateral benefits that are listed above. Firstly, it is very difficult to get on such excursions. Most often they are available only to special guests, sometimes to school groups. Registration for a visit to the Rot Front factory is held for two days in mid-August for a year in advance. One can note the Baltika concern, which conducts excursions at its factories in St. Petersburg, Tula and Chelyabinsk, as well as the Mikoyanovsky plant and the Kristall plant in Moscow.

Of the cities, Chelyabinsk has a real chance of soon becoming the capital of industrial tourism. And for how many cities this sphere could become a saving grace! There are dozens of depressing ghost towns in Russia, which will soon have little left but the majestic ruins of the Soviet economy. Asbest, Kizel, Chapaevsk, Karabash, Shchuchye, Baikalsk, Kopeisk, Krasnouralsk, Tyrnyauz, Ozerny and dozens of other cities - taiga, northern, mining, single-industry, rotational, military. For such cities, industrial tourism is almost the only chance to remain on the map of their homeland. Here we are talking, of course, not about visiting existing production facilities, but about turning into unique museums objects that, at their end, were a nightmare for the territory. After all, if the process cannot be stopped, then it must be led. This principle has long been used by many successful politicians, businessmen and even entire nations.

What is needed to organize an industrial tour? As the practice of other countries shows, the financial costs of organizing tourist routes for existing enterprises are relatively small. Another thing is working with old, abandoned sites. A special investment project is needed here to transform them into a spectacular national heritage. But in both cases we need a resource, which we still have in great short supply. This is the ability of very different interests to cooperate in one project. The first step in industrial tourism is cooperation between city and regional authorities, local business elite, local experts and travel companies. Here it is, an ideal field for public-private partnership, which we also tend to talk a lot about.

Having started to talk about industrial tourism, we should not forget about its domestic development. In, or more precisely in the USSR, excursions to enterprises were a completely common activity and everyone, from children to adults, went on them. For some time this tradition was lost, but is now gaining popularity again. Among the hundreds of Russian factories open to the public, we have selected several interesting options.

Coca-Cola Factory, Moscow

They will be happy to tell you how one of the most popular drinks of our time is produced at any Coca-Cola plant, of which there are more than a dozen in Russia. A walk through the workshops, a historical excursion, an acquaintance with the museum and a tasting take one and a half to two hours.

All factory tours are free, but must be arranged in advance. If you are planning to go to production, contact the excursions department at least a month before the expected date and coordinate everything.

Factory of Christmas decorations "Yolochka", Vysokovsk

As children, we all looked in fascination at the fragile, shining toys that at the end of December were taken out of dusty boxes and carefully hung on the Christmas tree. Now we have the opportunity not only to see how these miracles are made, but also to create something similar ourselves.

A two-hour tour of the factory includes a visit to the museum, a story about the history of New Year's toys, a walk through the blow molding and coloring workshop, and a master class. By the way, your creation will be given to you, and you can decorate your New Year tree with it. This pleasure costs about 400 rubles, and in a local store you can also buy toys as a gift.

Confectionery factory "Rot-Front", Moscow

Those with a sweet tooth have long learned that you can eat plenty of sweets and chocolate not only in the store, but also right at the factory. All confectionery factories in Moscow and the Moscow region are happy to welcome both organized groups and individual sweet lovers.

The cost of the excursion is 630 rubles. This amount includes a visit to the museum, watching a film about the factory, visiting several workshops and, of course, tasting. The guides strongly recommend taking a supply of unsweetened water with you, because you will have to try a lot.

Television center "Ostankino", Moscow

Is Ostankino a production facility in the truest sense of the word? I think no. But this does not make a visit to the television center any less educational. Here, for a thousand rubles you can learn how TV shows are made and take part in one of them.

It is worth agreeing on an excursion a week before the expected date of visit, and you need to have a passport with you.

Porcelain factory "Gzhel Association", Ramensky district, Novo-Kharitonovo village

Gzhel is known all over the world and is a very expensive and exquisite souvenir for foreigners. But Russians often don’t know where and how these blue and white works of art are made.

You can see the entire process of making Gzhel products in the Ramensky district. Here, in a large factory, guests will be shown how craftsmen work and taught how to sculpt and paint figures on their own. The duration of the excursion will be two hours, but prices will need to be agreed upon in advance with the factory administration - they may vary depending on the size of the group.

Bogorodskaya Toy Factory, Sergiev Posad

If you are planning to go on an excursion with the whole family, then give preference to the toy factory. Of course, you will have to go to another city, but Sergiev Posad is well located and getting there, either by car or by public transport, will not be difficult.

For 200 rubles you can see and touch funny wooden figures known to us from Soviet cartoons. And for another 250 - learn how to make the same ones (well, almost the same ones) yourself. Tours take place on any day except Sunday; advance registration is not required.

Brewing company "Baltika", St. Petersburg

But an excursion to the Baltika plant is only suitable for persons who have reached the age of majority and are able to document this. However, there is a plus - visiting the factory is free, although you will have to pay for the tasting.

Although the number of people wishing to look into the boilers with the foamy drink is growing from year to year, the number of excursions to the plant is not increasing. So you will have to adapt to the Baltika schedule and book your seats in the nearest group in advance.

Of course, prices for visiting most enterprises are higher than, for example, tickets to a museum or cinema, but believe me, you will enjoy an interesting and useful pastime.

bilbao tourism city branding

For a long time, specialists in urban development and strategic planning have argued that strategy Ї is a choice, choosing the best while rejecting the good. It would seem that the city cannot develop industry and tourism with equal strength - these are incompatible areas that interfere with each other.

For branding, their combination is even more unsuitable, since it interferes with the formation of identity and works for different target audiences. But the global peculiarities of existence in a fast-paced world force us to look for breakthrough ways of building a brand precisely in the area of ​​combining incompatible things. One of the clearest proofs of this is the growing popularity of industrial tourism in Western Europe and the USA.

Industrial tourismЇ this is the organization of regular tourist tours to existing (or once operating) industrial enterprises. Transformation of the production site into a tourist attraction. It cannot be said that it has never occurred to enterprises to attract tourists before. There were isolated examples, and American companies were pioneers in this sense. A precedent occurred when the Jack Daniel's distillery in Tennessee (whisky production) opened its doors to tourists in 1866, almost immediately after it opened itself. At the beginning of the 20th century, tourists visited the first Ford automobile plants in Detroit. However, only very recently Ї in the 1990s Ї industrial tourism from a non-core hobby of individual factory owners becomes a mass phenomenon. Why such a delay of more than 100 years? Because now, more than ever, manufacturers are aware of the importance of forming impressions of the goods they produce, and industrial tourism Ї the ideal tool for this.

Today in the United States a large number of businesses welcome tourists. For every serious company, be it a car assembly plant, a sawmill or an airport, it is considered bad form not to expose itself to tourists (consumers). The “discovery,” of course, is not complete. Only part of the production premises is given an exhibition and entertainment character; visitors are guided along a strictly defined route and see only what they are allowed to see. Innovative technologies and other “company secrets” are not disclosed.

With the beginning of the 21st century, industrial tourism is gaining momentum in Europe. By 2007, in France alone, 1,700 companies hosted tourists at their production sites (their detailed register and announcements of events are presented on the website www.visite-entreprise.com). The leader is the world's only tidal power plant in Rance, which is visited annually by 300 thousand tourists. Experts record that about 20 million people are involved in industrial tourism in France annually 50. In England, the Cadberry chocolate factory in Bournville, near Birmingham, is visited by 400 thousand people. In Spain, wine tours are super popular, in France - cheese tours, in the Netherlands - flower tours... In Germany, the emphasis is on post-industrial motifs, for example, abandoned coal and salt mines in the Ruhr, shipyards from the Second World War. Although, of course, many existing enterprises are open, of which the leader in attendance is the BMW plant in Bavarian Wolfsburg.

The rapid growth in the popularity of tourism products in industrial tourism clearly demonstrates the rapid development of the industry. However, its boundaries are much wider than is commonly believed, and the potential for use for city branding is far from being exhausted. After all, not only industrial facilities can be attractive to tourists, but also any organization or company, any workplace in general. Not only the production of goods, but also the production of services can be turned into a show without compromising the production process. If there is motivation (discussed below), banks, courts, schools and universities, regional and city administrations, logistics centers, libraries, train stations and airports, prisons and police stations, publishing houses, theaters and much, much more can become tourist sites.

Thus, it is more correct to use not the already familiar concept of “industrial tourism”, but another Ї industrial tourism, which is based on the tourist attractiveness of places where goods and services are produced, which can also be created to promote the city’s brand.

Now about the motives and benefits for each of the parties involved in this process. Why is this interesting for tourists? Modern tourists are collectors of places. According to research, 80% of the tourism market is made up of people who are traveling not for the first time. Such people are no longer fully satisfied with the standard tourist assortment - sea beaches, local history museums and art galleries. They are increasingly striving for comprehensive experiences, willingly combining relaxation with learning new things, improving their health with an exclusive excursion, participation in a business conference with sports activity and sightseeing. In this sense, excursions to enterprises are exactly what we need. A familiar city reveals itself from an unusual side. Products that are produced, as they say, online, you can immediately touch, try, try on, and buy. Industrial tourism is especially in demand among those traveling with children. Children wonder what happened to ice cream and chocolate before they got to the supermarket.

Why do manufacturers need this? First of all, letting consumers into your production is a subtle and beautiful advertising move. This is several hours of sophisticated advertising, which the tourist consumes willingly, since it is not imposed on him, and in addition, it is a demonstration of honesty and transparency of management, impeccability of technology, and confidence in one’s prospects in the face of competitors.

It is suspected that there is another important side effect. Transforming production into a tourist attraction stimulates the company to improve the corporate climate and labor relations. Cleaning workshops, clean work uniforms, presentable appearance of equipment and much more become meaningful, which, for example, the average Russian director did not see the point of before. And workers’ motivation to work changes when they are looked at as participants in an exhibition, exemplary process.

So, the company receives consumer loyalty and effective support for its brands. In addition, the turnover of stores selling the company's products at points where excursions end is 40% higher than at other points with similar products. It is also attractive for companies that organizing excursions does not cost a lot of money, especially considering the effect they have: “The annual salary of a guide leading excursions at an enterprise is equal to a quarter of a one-time advertising sheet in Spiegel magazine.”

Finally, about third party interest. It goes without saying how the city itself benefits from stimulating sales of city goods and services. In addition to the tax base and jobs, cities gain new product and service brands, new unexpected and attractive brand elements, and large numbers of tourists. Only in cities there is infrastructure for industrial tourism - transport, communications, trade, hotels, cafes. In addition, excursions to operating enterprises are, as a rule, an additional “load” to other tourist magnets, which are again concentrated in cities. Moreover, the most popular among tourists are objects that are brands of specific cities. For example, the port complex in Rotterdam or the Rolex factory in Zurich.

In the USSR, organizing excursions was the responsibility of almost every reputable enterprise. Labor veterans, for example, did this with pleasure. Thus, excursions to Moscow confectionery factories were famous. As for modern Russia, we can, unfortunately, only talk about precedents for industrial tourism. New projects are also appearing, but these are rather exceptions to the rule, and none of them see their task as promoting the city. In addition, all of them are carried out “as a burden” to the main activity, clearly without passion, as a tribute to fashion and without taking into account the multilateral benefits that are listed above. To begin with, it is very difficult to get on such excursions. Most often they are available only to special guests, sometimes to school groups. For example, registration for a visit to the Rot Front confectionery factory is carried out only for two days in mid-August for a year in advance. In general, the managers of confectionery production do not see the point in inviting tourists; they view it as a social burden and strive to cover up non-core activities. Positive examples include the Baltika concern, which organizes excursions at its factories in St. Petersburg, Tula and Chelyabinsk, as well as the Mikoyanovsky plant and the Kristall plant in Moscow.

Of the Russian cities, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Kazan have real opportunities to become the capital of industrial tourism, and cities that have a number of large industries, some of whose territories could be converted into demonstration ones. And for how many cities this sphere could become a saving grace! After all, there are dozens of depressive ghost towns in Russia, where soon there will be almost nothing left except the sadly majestic ruins of the Soviet economy. These are Asbest, Kizel, Chapaevsk, Karabash, Shchuchye, Baikalsk, Kopeysk, Krasnouralsk, Tyrnyauz, Ozerny and other cities with a difficult fate - taiga, northern, mining, single-industry, rotational, military... At the same time, almost each of them has resources for the development of industrial tourism. Here we are talking, of course, not about visiting existing production facilities, but about turning into unique museums objects that, at their end, were a nightmare for the territory. Perhaps for such cities, industrial tourism is almost the only chance to remain on the map of their homeland.

What is needed to organize industrial tourism? As the practice of other countries shows, the financial costs of organizing tourist routes for existing enterprises are relatively small. Another thing is working with old, abandoned sites. What is needed here is a special investment project to transform them into a spectacular heritage and an urban branding tool. But both in the case of abandoned industries and in the case of existing ones, one resource is required, which we still have in great short supply. This is the ability of very different interests to cooperate in one project. The first step in industrial tourism is cooperation between city and regional authorities, business owners, local business elite, local experts and travel companies. This is the ideal field for public-private partnerships, which we also tend to talk about a lot and in the abstract.

The practice of cities developing industrial tourism shows that as soon as one of the companies begins to invite tourists to production, the task immediately arises of making their visit to the city “more efficient” so that they can visit several attractions of this kind at once. The city administration and the chamber of commerce and industry enter into contact with other city companies and offer assistance in organizing excursions to enterprises. At the next stage, industrial tourism projects give impulses to other sectors of brand cultivation through the development of the hospitality industry. Something like this happened in 2004-2006 in Rotterdam, where the central project of industrial tourism became an international seaport, and then, within a year, three more city enterprises opened tourist routes on their territory.

Industrial tourism is a new global trend. At the international tourism exhibition “Recreation”, this fresh trend was presented at a single stand by the Kaliningrad region and the Ural regions (Perm region, Udmurtia and Yekaterinburg).

“The Urals have great potential for industrial tourism, there are many interesting sites and many enthusiasts,” emphasized Roman Skory, Deputy Head of the Federal Tourism Agency, at the panel session “Industrial tourism - a new global trend: the best regional and international practices”, held as part of the International tourist exhibition "Rest" in Moscow.

In the Ural cities, many ancient industries have been preserved: the factories of the Demidovs, Stroganovs and others. They will be especially interesting to foreign tourists. After all, in Russia and in the West, production development followed different paths. We always had a lot of land, and industries that had lost their importance were simply abandoned, and a new plant was built on a new site. In Europe, on the contrary, industrial buildings were rebuilt and even demolished in order to erect new workshops in their place, and the equipment was melted down and disposed of. As a result, almost no historical production facilities have survived there. And to see what, for example, a metallurgical plant was like in the 17th - 18th centuries, tourists will have to go to Russia. In addition to historical factories, the Urals has interesting industrial complexes from the Soviet period, as well as modern enterprises.

“Industrial tourism is the best advertisement of an enterprise,” says Natalya Kazakova, head of the Profi-Tour agency (Kaliningrad). After all, this is an opportunity to promote the company’s products both in Russian and foreign markets. This is the creation of consumer confidence in the plant's products. This is important, for example, for the production of food, cars, household appliances, furniture, etc. At the same time, industrial tourism can have an educational and career guidance function.

“Showing our production means demonstrating our educational potential to schoolchildren and students. So that they choose not only humanitarian specialties, but also technical ones,” added Elena Godovykh, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee for International Relations of the Assembly of Peoples of Russia. In Russia now there are not enough engineers and designers. Young people can be attracted to professions through excursions to production facilities.

The discussion was attended by heads of travel agencies that organize excursions to existing industrial enterprises in Moscow, Kaliningrad and Perm. They all noted that creating an industrial tourism product is not an easy task. This is a business plan for several years to build relationships with the enterprise. After all, excursions need to be organized so that they do not interfere with the production process. This sometimes requires large investments. In addition, the plant will need staff for such an excursion project. There are problems with the legislative framework for visiting industrial sites. However, there are no enterprises that are not ready to cooperate. Production managers understand that this is an advertising and marketing event plus a solution to a personnel problem.

Tour operators noted that industrial, or as it is also called, industrial tourism, is a solid all-season product with a margin of more than 30%. The main thing is to choose the right program. Children from 6 to 12 years old are interested in the production of ice cream, chocolate, jewelry and perfumes. They like it when the excursion program includes a master class.

Children over 12 years old can be shown large modern production cycles; they are interested in the history of production and the educational program. They want to know how airport control, a furniture factory, a greenhouse, a shipyard, and a dairy production line work.