Joint-Stock Company Northern Caucasus Resorts started the construction of ski and road infrastructure, located within Veduchi SEZ managed within the mechanism of special economic zones with the aim of creating Northern Caucasus tourist cluster. Construction and installation works started to create a ropeway, piste, building of active recreation service center, slope lighting systems, roads and other facilities, which will be open for tourists in 2017/2018 ski season.
‘We are waiting for the first tourists in the next ski season and do our best to build basic ski infrastructure for them to start learning the basics of skiing,’ Khasan Timizhev, Deputy Director General of JSC NCR for strategic development, said.
In accordance with the investment program, Joint-Stock Company Northern Caucasus Resorts will spend over RUB 1.5 billion in 2017 for the construction of ski infrastructure within the zero stage of resort development.
The process of creating Veduchi ATRC builds on the experience gained from the pilot project of the tourist cluster, i.e. Arkhyz in Karachay-Cherkessia. ‘For several years we managed to turn Arkhyz from nothing into a modern ski resort, with popularity growing each year — not only in terms of tourist flow growth, but also in terms of its attractiveness for investors,’ a company spokesman said. ‘This same sort of situation also occurs in Veduchi: the readiness to join the project was also announced by Pik and Vershina, which together with Veduchi LLC, the anchor investor of the SEZ, will develop commercial infrastructure of the resort,’ Khasan Timizhev stressed.
In accordance with the memorandums of intent signed by JSC NCR with potential residents of Veduchi SEZ at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2017, Vershina is to create a tourist base worth RUB 52 million and arrange a ski equipment rental, involving PikExperience as an operating organization, which has been already working in Arkhyz ATRC for several years. Pik shall build a hotel complex with a total cost of RUB 368 million.
Further the progressive increase in the number of Veduchi ATRC residents within the advance demand strategy is expected, when to attract private investors ski infrastructure, stimulating the growth of tourist flow, which guarantees to the resident return on its investment, is created. ‘This system has also proved to be effective in Arkhyz ATRC, where we have gone from one resident in 2013 to 27 residents at the moment. And the peak of interest of private businesses occurred during the growth of tourists — from 30 thousand people in 2013/2014 season up to 170 thousand people in the last ski season,’ the JSC NCR spokesman added.
In the long term, in case of implementation of the plans of JSC NCR to develop Veduchi ATRC in full, by 2025 the annual tourist flow to the site will be 180 thousand people, 1 thousand beds for accommodation and 719 jobs will be created. Annual GRP growth in the Chechen Republic will be 0.6%, or RUB 1 billion, and full return on the budgetary investment to the budget system of the Russian Federation shall occur by 2041 that corresponds to the principle of the development of major infrastructure projects.