This lecture explains to developers the main difference between Altai and mature urban markets: in the city, the developer often enters into the already formed competition: the district is known, the buyer is clear, the price of the meter has developed, the neighboring objects are pressing on each other. In Altai, the situation is different. Here you can also create the very value of the territory: through roads, service, medical core, glamping, aparthotels, routes, management company and the gradual development of large land masses.
The lecture aims to show that Altai should not be perceived as a place for a solitary recreation center, but should be considered as the territory of the formation of a new type of resort cluster.
Colleagues, when a developer looks at a city, they see a map that's clear. The neighborhoods are already distributed. There's a center, sleeping areas, industrial areas, new neighborhoods, transportation corridors, schools, shopping centers, and the price per square meter.
It's convenient, but it's also a constraint. In a city, a developer is more likely to work within a given value, he can build better, faster, more beautifully, but he rarely changes the value of the neighborhood. He often adapts to the existing market.
The Altai is different, and the value of the territory is still largely formed, not all the land is open, not all the routes are packed, not all the strong places have got infrastructure, not all the areas have become understandable tourist products, so the developer has a rare opportunity to not just enter the market, but participate in its creation.
So this is a fundamental point. In a city, a developer sells an object within a neighborhood, and in Altai, a developer can create a location, a scenario, and a new value for the land around him.
The Altai Republic is no longer an unknown destination; by the end of 2025, the region received 2.8 million tourists, which is 100,000 more than in 2024. The authorities of the region predict a moderate growth in tourist flow in 2026 - by about 5%, to about 2.9 million guests.
And yet, the Altai Republic is not yet a landscape where everything is dismantled and built up, and that's the window of opportunity, the flow, the brand, the nature, the demand, but a quality, systemic, managed resort product is still not enough.
Domestic tourism in Russia is also growing as an industry: in 11 months of 2025, the number of tourist trips in the country reached 82.9 million, which is 5% more than in the same period in 2024. The national project aims to reach 140 million tourist trips per year by 2030. For the developer, this means that tourism has already entered the state and investment agenda as a separate economy.
But the growth of tourist traffic does not make any site a good asset; the tourist can come and go without leaving the territory with serious added value, money appears where the flow turns into a product: accommodation, treatment, food, routes, service, leisure, rent, unit sales, re-entry and load management.
This is where the development begins.
Altai today can't be developed as a place to sleep, a recreation center solves a narrow problem: to take a person for a few days, a resort cluster solves another problem: to keep the person longer, to give him more services, to form a reason to return, to create a profitable model for unit owners and to raise the value of the entire territory.
A resort cluster is not a single facility. It's a system. It can be a health center or a health center, and it can be surrounded by accommodation: glampings, aparthotels, modular houses, low-rise buildings, family units. Next comes services: bath complex, restaurant, diagnostics, walking routes, excursions, rental, farm products, children's areas, event programs.
When all of this is put together in a single model, the earth starts to work differently, it stops being an empty area, it becomes part of the stay scenario.
For a developer, it changes the economy, and it can go in queues, not just full scale, but first, first, the first area, the road, the engineering base, the service core, the medical program, a few strong species facilities, then expand the number of rooms, sell units, start new queues, develop the surrounding land.
The main financial effect is not just the first sale; the first phase changes the perception of the entire territory, the buyer no longer sees the "land someday for the project", but a live resort cluster with people, services, downloads, photos, reviews and management.
And then the neighborhoods inside the array become more expensive, and if the developer has fixed the price of the land, he gets the important advantage of buying the land at the old agreed price, and selling or developing it in the new market logic.
In the city, this is limited, and if a developer builds a house in a built-up area, the increase in the value of the adjacent land is often already factored into the price of entry, and in Altai, some of this capitalization can still be created by doing it yourself.
That's why rent-a-pocketing becomes a powerful tool, because the developer doesn't freeze all the capital in the land, he gets the time, the territory, the legal structure, the fixed price, and the ability to develop the project in stages, and in a market with an uncertain rate of sales, this is especially important.
And the model is also strong, where the land is partly settled in urban apartments, and many developers have finished properties that are difficult to implement at the current pace, and for them it's not just illiquid, it's a frozen construction result, and if you can exchange it for the entrance to the resort area, the asset starts working again.
Instead of keeping the apartments on balance and waiting for the buyer, the developer gets land for a new product: recreation, medical tourism, eco-tourism, aparthotels, glamping towns and managed rentals.
And the Altai can't be developed only on the domestic tourist, domestic tourism is needed, it's already there, it creates a base load, but strategically, you need to look more broadly, inbound tourism, medical tourism and services exports give a different scale of revenue.
According to the Ministry of Economic Development, the number of foreign tourist trips to Russia has increased to 5.6 million in two years.This does not mean an automatic flow to the Altai, but means that the window for international positioning is opening again.
Altai may be interesting to foreign tourists not as a usual "see nature" destination, there are many such destinations in the world, Altai should be packaged as a territory of restoration: mountains, rivers, silence, climate, medical programs, therapeutic nutrition, unloading and diet therapy, bath practices, routes, privacy, security and long stay.
A foreign tourist will not go just because Altai is beautiful, there are enough beautiful places in the world, he will go if he has a clear product: where to fly, where to live, what program, who treats, who accompanys, what languages, what security, what level of service, what routes and how many days it makes sense to stay on the territory.
So the developer has to build more than just buildings, he has to be involved in creating a product that can be sold through tour operators, medical channels, corporate programs, family restoration programs, and international partnerships.
In this sense, the medical core is not an extra service, but an anchor of the economy: the average tourist can come for two or three days, the person on the rehabilitation or medical program comes for a longer period of time, and he buys not only the room, but also the food, the procedures, the maintenance, the diagnosis, the routes, the family vacation and the re-program.
For an apart-unit or a glamping owner, that means a more understandable loading, and the object is not in the woods, where it's all about advertising and season, but it's right next to the center, which creates the reason for coming.
So the partner who builds a home next to the health and service core gets more than just a plot, they get increased liquidity for their product, and the unit buyer realizes that there's flow, management and meaning to staying there, which reduces the fear of buying and raises the price.
This is how the Altai territory should evolve: not chaotic houses, not random bases, not scattered rentals, but interconnected resort clusters, each cluster should have its own core, its audience, its architecture, its logic of routes and its management model.
Chemal district can work as a mature market with a strong flow and fame. Turochak district and Teletskoye lake - as a forest and water area of relaxation. Ulagan district - as a territory of routes, depth and expeditionary nature. Karakol lakes - as a future point of year-round resort development. Each district has its own role, and this is what should be used in development.
The mistake is to think of Altai as one common landscape: a professional developer has to see different markets within the same republic, somewhere more glamping, somewhere aparthotel, somewhere a sanatorium, somewhere a roadside service, somewhere private residences, somewhere a large array of phased development.
That's why large land masses have special value. A small plot gives a limited model: build one facility and sell or rent. A large array gives you a strategy: first, second, service zone, unit sales, rent, buyback, resale of part of the territory, partner plots, management company and capitalization growth.
In the city, a developer often sells the entire volume and exits the project, and in the resort area, it's more profitable to be an operator, a partner or a management member, because income comes not only at the time of sale, but also after: rent, service, management, re-programs, maintenance, excursions, food, medical services.
It's unusual for a developer, but that's where resilience comes in. Unit sales generate capital. Management generates regular income. Land capitalizes. The medical core generates flow. Partners scale. Tourism creates market. Together, it's stronger than single-family apartment sales.
Of course, this model cannot be chaotic: you need a legal framework, a clear lease with foreclosure, order, master plan, engineering concept, architecture rules, management company, marketing and agreements between participants, without which the cluster will become a set of disparate construction projects.
If the structure is assembled correctly, Altai becomes more than just a holiday destination; it becomes a development platform.
The platform is when each new facility reinforces the previous one. We built a health center, we built a value for living. We built glamping, we got flow and visual content. We made a road, we got liquidity in the neighboring land. We launched a bath complex, we increased the duration of stay. We opened routes, we strengthened the season. We added an aparthotel, we expanded the investment product. We launched management, we increased the trust of unit buyers.
That's how the market is created.
Altai doesn't just need to be built up. It needs to be built up, and the developer who understands this before anyone else will make money not only on square meters, but also on the growth of the value of the territory.
Final thesis of the lecture
The city market is most often already created before the developer, and the Altai resort market can still be created together with the developer.
In the city, a developer competes for a buyer, and in Altai, he can create a new location, a new flow, a new land value and a new investment product.
Short option for performing on stage
Altai is not a place for a casual recreational center, it is an area where you can create resort clusters: a medical center, a glamping city, an aparthotel, service, routes, management and phased development of the land.
The Altai Republic has already received 2.8 million tourists in 2025, domestic tourism in Russia is growing, the state goal is 140 million trips by 2030, but the main reserve is not just to take more people. The main reserve is to turn the flow into a quality product.
A developer can rent a large amount of land for ransom, fix the price, build the first thing, create a flow and raise the value of the surrounding area, which is a fundamentally different economy compared to a city apartment.
In the city, he sells a property inside an established market, and in Altai, he can participate in the creation of the market itself.