Sustainable development of tourism in the Baikal region.

Abstract: In the article the issues of the sustainable development of tourism in the Baikal region are discussed and, first of all, maintaining the biological and landscape diversity of the area under conditions of the increasing anthropogenic burden. The Transbaikalian National Park was taken as the example. In the course of research the comprehensive assessment of the recreational degradation of the terrain, the quantitative accounting of the recreational load of the objects was carried out; those having a rest as well as the local residents were interviewed. Based on the results the methods for solving the problematic situations have been developed that can help to mitigate or prevent the escalation of the destructive natural processes. In order to radically solve the issues related to the further tourism development within the specified area it was suggested to use the method of the permissible landscape changes instead of the permissible recreational load method approved for the national planning system before. The research findings may be put to good use not only within the Transbaikalian National park but also on the entire Baikal natural area. Key words: The Lake Baikal National park Baikal region Sustainable tourism INTRODUCTION The study was based on the principles of the The Lake Baikal together with the surrounding area landscape-environmental and geoinformation approaches features various natural and cultural resources allowing to [2, 3], recreational zoning [4], assessment of the tourist