Some more facts

Belarus has a high natural potential for tourism development. This includes spacious, well-maintained forest, forest-lake and forest-river natural complexes comprising natural monuments, diverse flora and fauna, natural medical resources (medicinal mineral water, mud-peat and sapropels), game and fish areas, picturesque landscapes offering good opportunities for walking, horseback, bike, water (boat, motor ship, kayak, sailing) tours, recreation and rehabilitation.

About 8% of the country’s area is covered by specifically protected natural complexes, among which the most significant are the National Parks: Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Narochansky, Braslav Lakes, and Pripyatsk; Berezinsky Biosphere Reserve; wildlife Reserves Nalibokskaya Pushcha and Blue Lakes.

The National Park Narochansky offers a year-round recreation. The spa zone accommodates guest cottages and recreational institutions, 26 tourist and recreation posts are constructed on the lake’s picturesque banks, visitors are offered game and fishing tours.

The National Park Belovezhskaya Pushcha (one of the first reserves in the world) offers tourists the Viskuly and Kamenyuky hotels, Count Tyshkevich house cottage and Pererov house and the Residence of Father Frost.

More than 30 hunting reserves located in all regions of Belarus offer their services in organizing hunting tours. Ecological rural and sport tourism is developing.

Tourists may find interesting facts about the history of Belarus, its folk art, combat glory, culture and art by visiting 138 museums, 28 theatres and centres of folk handicraft industry and crafts in Minsk, Polotsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Brest and in many other towns and urban settlements.

Not only the capital of Belarus, but also regional cities and provincial towns offer genuine Belarusian hospitality and comfort. Tourists may find accommodation in 258 hotels, 8 tourist and recreational centres, 8 tourist facilities, over 3 thousand restaurants, cafes, bars and more than 200 large sport facilities offer their services.

To rationally use national sacred places and most valuable natural complexes, the tourist industry has been subject to restructuring to become an important component of recreation and health rehabilitation of people, as well as a potential source of revenues to the national budget. Enabling environment is being created to attract investments to this sector.

The tourist service market based on new forms of business relations began to develop in the early 90s. The framework defining the operation of tourist companies has been designed, tourist business licensing has been introduced, regulatory and legal acts regulating reception and servicing of foreign tourists, sport hunting and fishing for foreigners have been drawn up and are in force, servicing standards in the hotel industry have been introduced and the problem of frontier openness and free crossing of the Belarusian border by foreigners has been settled.

At the current stage, the government attributes great importance to establishing bilateral and multilateral relations with other states in the tourism sphere and promoting cooperation with international tourist agencies. Belarus has expanded the range of services provided to foreign tourists: hunting and fishing tours, tourist recreation in Belarus, various tours related to sport and cultural activities and agro/ecotourism.

Currently, tourist facilities are being constructed and rehabilitated at a large scale and an enabling environment for operation of tourist companies and advertising/information support of the country’s tourist industry is being created.

The mountain skiing sports and recreational centres Logoisk and Silichy, the residence of Grandfather Frost in Belovezhskaya Pushcha and tourist facilities in the reserves have been built, the Augustovsky and the Dnieper-Bug Canals are being restored, etc. New hotels are intensively being built and the old ones are being reconstructed, and the best of them (in Minsk, Vitebsk and Gomel) are certified as 3 and 4-star hotels.

The mountain skiing/sport/recreational centre Logoisk is located 30 km north of the capital of Belarus in Minsk Region. The most attractive natural feature of this area of Belarus is its relief for which it was named Belarusian Switzerland. Owing to the natural landscape, a mountain skiing resort of the international level was built. The resort offers a comfortable 50-room hotel, a billiard room, a bar-cafe, wooden rest houses, a restaurant, a sauna, a children’s playground, a 800-m long lighted route with an elevation difference of 80 m equipped with a ski lift, a tube, a parking and a lot more to the visitors.