STORYTELLING, LEGENDING AND MYTHOLOGIZATION IN DESTINATION EXPERIENCE MARKETING

Domestic tourism is currently rapidly developing in Russia. Regions actively compete with each other to attract tourist flow, for promotion they actively use not only covering the basic needs of tourists in recreation, but also increasing the importance of impressions as a property of a regional tourism product that forms an additional increase in cost. The most cost-effective tool that promotes a destination is storytelling, as well as its instruments: legending and mythologization, the use of which is described in this article. The purpose is to determine the possibility and features of using storytelling, legending and mythologization in experience marketing of destination to increase the competitiveness of the regions of the Russian Federation in the domestic and inbound tourism. The methods of comparison, generalization, logical and statistical analysis were used as a methodological base. We analyzed the existing examples of using the studied tools in the practice of promoting destinations in the experience marketing paradigm. The article describes the historical background of the emergence of experience marketing, its use to promote a regional tourism product, the essence and methods of using storytelling, legending and mythologization in the tourism industry, and provides examples of their positive and negative impact on the image of the region. Based on the analysis results, a project of events was developed to promote the regional tourism product of the Arkhangelsk region. It includes the introduction of storytelling tools, legend-making and mythologization in order to attract tourists to the region and increase the tourist flow. We have concluded that impression marketing tools that create the necessary image of the region can be used to attract tourists to the regions of Russia.