Elena Martynova, Director of the Tula Region Tourism Development Agency Regional Foundation, made a presentation at a round table dedicated to smart city technologies for the development of the hospitality industry. According to Elena Martynova, digitalization has become a priority in the development of the industry in the region. The transition to a new level of development of the tourism sector implies a new level of development of the tourism service, which is the portalvisittula.com and its additional services. "The redesign of the portal in 2022 increased website traffic, which made it possible to achieve record figures: compared to 2019, the number of visits from potential tourists from Moscow increased 3 times; the total number of visitors to the resource increased 2.5 times. Servicevisittula.com is the entry point on the way to deciding whether to travel to the region. The search engine optimization of the portal and the new convenient structure allow you to present to the user all the most interesting events and objects, to choose the optimal route. And the introduction of the Ostrov booking service on the website made it possible to quickly schedule a visit to Tula and the region." – said Elena Martynova. Tula has not only a portal in its arsenal, but also a mobile application, an automatic response service, a chatbot, and additional navigation points in the city - infostels. The Tula region is an example of successful tourism digitalization of the region, confirming that it is not only a workshop of Russia, but also a modern center of tourism.
