Tourist attractiveness of Russian regions: does corruption matter?[Туристическая Привлекательность Российских Регионов: Коррупция Имеет Значение?]

The relevance of the study. Tourism is essential to the success of many economies around the world. There are several advantages of tourism for the host destinations. Tourism increases the income of the economy, creates thousands of jobs, develops the country’s infrastructure and promotes cultural exchange between foreigners and citizens. Research problem. The purpose of the article is to study the nature of the impact of corruption on the tourist attractiveness of Russian regions. The research question of this paper is formulated as follows: what is the nature of the impact of corruption on the tourist attractiveness of Russian regions? Literature review. It is shown that in the scientific literature there are two main approaches to the study of this issue – «sand the wheels» and «grease the wheels». In accordance with these theories, the following research hypotheses were put forward: (1) with the growth of corruption, there is a decrease in regional tourist attractiveness; (2) with the growth of corruption, there is no decrease in the tourist attractiveness of Russian regions. Data and research methods. The sources of the data are Crime statistics portal of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation and the Federal State Statistics Service. The calculations were performed with the help of the method of multiple linear regression. Research results confirmed the second hypothesis. Statistical calculations have shown that corruption does not have a negative impact on the tourist attractiveness of the regions of the Russian Federation. This result is due both to the specifics of the perception of corruption by the Russians, and to the stronger influence of cultural, historical and marketing factors. It is revealed that the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with a higher level of corruption have a greater number of regional brands and cultural monuments which attract tourists.