Scientific Evening About News in Tourism Will Take Place on October 7, 2015

Plan of the evening: Guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Steingrube (University of Greifswald, Germany) - "Diaspora Tourism - Crazy Idea of Scientists or new Market Segment for Tourism Industry?" From scientific point of view demography cares for the topic „diaspora”. That term comprises all groups of people scattered across the world but drawn together as a community by their actual common bonds of ethnicity, culture, religion, national identity and sometimes, race. Nowadays in a world of migration this phenomenon becomes more and more relevant in many countries. However, in tourism we can observe different travel behaviours between „national inhabitants” and migrants. International tourism flow is influenced more and more by this development. As the absolute number of diasporic trips seemed to be on a low level, tourism industry did not really worry about. But meanwhile we see a lot of linked effects which will touch the tourism industry also economically. Presentation by Dr. Aija van der Steina (University of Latvia) - "Crisis in Russia and its Impact on Inbound Tourism in Latvia" Russian tourism market in recent years has become one of the major markets, reaching up to 25 % of the market share. At the national, regional and local destination level Russian tourists were defined as a high-priority target market, where a series of marketing activities were carried out to attract this market even more effectively and to increase revenue. Since 2014, the development of this market is experiencing changes facilitated both by the economic and geopolitical processes in Russia. Declining number of Russian tourists traveling to foreign countries has affected not only the numbers or Russian tourists and revenue in Latvia, but also the consumer behaviour of Russian tourists as well as the tourist sites' and companies' activities in this market. The presentation will reveal what changes in the Russian tourism market are observed, and what activities the tourist sites and tourism sector companies carry out to undermine the impact of the crisis. Working language: English Participation: free More information: www.hochschulkontor.lv