Tourism industry and the field of excursion are currently changing in their role and structure in the economy. Educational and excursion tourism is gaining popularity. Innovations that come into force in the legal regulation of the activities of guides, guides-interpreters and instructors-guides, mandatory regional certification, in turn, give rise to problems of interregional certification. Therefore, the excursion sector needs optimization and national planning more than ever. To address these issues, the article proposes effective and practically significant methodology of territorial tourist zoning. We introduce the concept of a tourist and excursion macroregion (TEMR), which is based on the magnet-destinations and character-destinations as the key resources. This hypothesis is underpinned by a model (scheme) of zoning areas for tourism and sightseeing in Russia. The article provides a comprehensive description of the seven selected TEMRs of Russia, and presents a list of the most important categories of resources that are key to the excursion tourism development in the country.

Originally published in https://stcc.rgutspubl.org/index.php/1/article/view/85