Prerequisites for the development of green tourism: global, national and regional dimensions

Abstract

The article dwells on generalization of object estimation of green tourism development in the system of its complex analysis. Objective assessment covers the economic, social and cultural aspects of the analysis and involves taking into account the impact of global and national trends in tourism development. The specifics and advantages of green tourism development as a sphere of employment, realization of business potential, use of resource and ethno-cultural features of territories are determined. The analysis of global trends of tourism development, which forms the general tendencies in the market of tourist services, is carried out. There is a significant increase in the number of international tourists in the world: if in 1950 their share in the total world population was 1.0%, then in 2017 it reached 17.5%. The state of the tourism industry in Ukraine from the point of view of possibilities of green tourism development is analyzed. The dynamics of tourism development at the national level shows that the growth of the number of arrivals of foreign tourists for the period of 2000-2017 was 2.2 times, with the peak values of the indicator observed in the “pre-crisis” 2008 and 2013, and for the number of tourists leaving Ukraine – 2.0 times with even stronger dynamics and slight contraction in the periods 2007-2008 and 2013-2014. The dynamics of inbound tourism clearly demonstrates the sensitivity of the industry in the international market before the crisis. In this regard, the potential development of specific types of tourism, as green, with a reference point for a foreign consumer, is possible under conditions of stable financial, economic and political situation. The paper shows that the declining dynamics of domestic tourists in the context of the prospects for the development of green tourism can be considered from two points: as a flaw - reducing the number of domestic tourists reduces the demand for tourism services and complicates the development of green tourism with the offer of a specific tourist product; as a challenge - with a decrease in the number of domestic tourists the market is at the stage of cyclical development, which allows, under the condition of stimulating green tourism, to occupy a significant niche in the formation of a national (regional) tourism product specialized in the relevant services. The regional peculiarities of tourism development in Ukraine with the prospect of regionalization of the industry regulation and targeted support of green tourism are revealed. According to official statistics, the leading regions for the main indicators of tourism development are Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv regions. The differentiation of the market for tourist services determines the need for regionalization of tourism development in Ukraine. Stimulating the development of green tourism should be based on regional and local specifics.