METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING TOURISM POTENTIAL

To solve various practical problems (such as locating tourist infrastructure facilities, developing tourist and excursion routes, identifying promising types of tourism, zoning a territory, etc.), it is important to assess the existing tourist potential of a territory. The object of study is the tourist potential of a territory, and the subject of the research is the methodology for its assessment. The purpose of the study is to propose a methodology for assessing the tourist potential of a territory that does not depend on the subjective opinion of either the researcher or the expert group. All indicators included in the assessment of the tourist potential of a territory are distributed among three blocks: natural, cultural-historical, and socio-economic. The methodology presented in the article is based on statistical relative indicators of the intensity of individual tourist resources, characterizing the degree of their distribution within the municipalities selected as operational territorial units. The article presents the main objectives that arise when assessing the tourist potential of a territory, analyzes existing methods for assessing tourist potential proposed by various authors, and examines a methodology for calculating relative individual and overall assessment indicators for each block and the integrated indicator of the tourist potential of a municipality.