REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE HOTEL BASE OF THE COUNTRY BY STAR CATEGORIES (ON THE EXAMPLE OF FRANCE)

Abstract

Problem Statement and Purpose. Hospitality is one of the components of the tourism industry. The material base, which is intended for accommodation of tourists, occu­pies one of the first places during the formation of tourist infrastructure. Quality of accommodation and adequate service affect the level of travel service. Regional dis­tribution of functioning of the hotel industry on the example of France is the purpose of scientific research.It is based on the use of scientific works of Ukrainian and foreign authors: Malʹsʹkoyi M.P., Velichko V.V., Puzentylo P.R. and others.Data & Methods. The main information and statistical base of the study was the ma­terials of the official website of the French tourism industry, as additional used other travel sites, in order to take into account a more objective picture of the characteristics of French hotels of a certain category. The following research methods are used in the article: 1) descriptive (characteristics of the main features of the hotel base of each of the categories, providing general information on its regional distribution); 2) comparative (comparison and comparison of the quantitative status and qualitative characteristics of hotels in France in terms of both categories and regions); 3) analyt­ical (search for causes and general qualitative assessment of the regional distribution of the studied phenomena and objects); 4) graphic (construction of diagrams for the purpose of visual representation of the received results); 5) cartographic (creation of a visual map of the regional distribution of the hotel base in France by star categories).Results. The state of France's hotel infrastructure has been analyzed by category. The highest class hotels are Palace hotels, which are characterized by an impeccable rep­utation and international recognition (15 units). At the beginning of 2019, there were 517 5 * hotels in the regions of France. The largest number is in the Provence-Alpes- Côte d'Azur region (132 hotels) and the smallest in the Center region - Loire Valley (5 units). The number of hotel rooms is found to be higher in areas where there is a large variety of entertainment or historic sites. It is estimated that among the 509 French 5-star hotels, 306 hotels have their own restaurant. There were 2,877 4-star hotels in France. The region's leader in the number of hotels in this class is the Іle-de-France region, with 544 hotels.In France, there were 8138 three-star hotel establishments. The leader in regions by number of hotels in this category is Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes, with 1,181 hotels. The last position is occupied by the Corsica region – 232 hotels. Within the French re­gions, 4913 two-star hotels were allocated. The leading positions are in three regions: Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes (761 hotels); Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (694 hotels); Languedoc – Roussillon – South – Pyrenees (650 hotels). The smallest number of hotels in this category is in the Corsica region – 111 hotels. There is a significant difference between the numbers of rooms in the regions. 42% of all two-star hotels have restaurants. There were 561 one-star hotels in France. The leader in the number of hotels in this category is the Ile-de-France region – 91 hotels, while the smallest number of one-star hotels is available in the Corsica region, with only 5 hotels. It is revealed that the main number of hotel establishments in the country belongs to the category "without stars", which is explained by the high requirements for accommo­dation establishments, which significantly complicates the process of obtaining an establishment of even one star (37161 hotels without stars).When conducting a regional analysis of the distribution of the entire hotel base in France, and for each category separately, it is impossible to observe certain clear geo­graphical patterns (increase or decrease with ascent to the mountains, approaching the coast or as increasing or decreasing urbanization, etc.). In general, the number of hotels, hotel rooms and restaurants at hotels is distributed throughout the territory according to the situation in France, their concentration generally corresponds to the places of concentration of any kind of tourist and recreational resources.