ИСТИНА

One of the main goals in tourism destination development is increasing tourist attractiveness for target audiences. The crucial element of this approach is to manage digital strategy that allows to raise awareness, engagement, positive associations, and thus to boost tourist flow. The digital strategy can include a website of tourism destination, mapping and description of specific tourist attractions, sites of supporting industries: hotels, restaurants, transport, tourists’ agencies etc., as well as online community. The purpose of the paper is to reveal the role of online travel communities in improving tourism destinations attractiveness, with the focus on the Russian tourism market.