Application of ICT for the Strategic Planning of Rural Tourism as a Tool for the Regional Economy Development - Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation Case Study

The objective of the paper is to propose the way of the usage of new information technologies to collect and analyze data to improve the quality of the strategic planning of tourism industry which is considered to influence positively on the regional economy, and particularly, the economy of the countryside of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation. Rural tourism is believed to be the trigger mechanism for the territories' development, raising the level of its entrepreneurial and civil activity. The authors propose the tool of creating and the usage of contemporary information technologies and data processing both about actual and potential entrepreneurs ready to provide tourist services and those entrepreneurs' clients. Those services can be used to monitor and control tourism development to improve the quality of the territory development forecasting.