Motivational Potential in the Development of Ethnographic Tourism in Kharkiv Region

Abstract

The article is aimed at exploring the motivational potential in the development of ethnographic tourism in Kharkiv region, expressing the main motives for choosing ethnographic tours. The awareness of potential consumers of ethnographic tours regarding this type of tourism and the resources upon which it is based has been analyzed. Fifty-eight respondents were surveyed, including 30 students studying in the specialty of «Tourism», aged 18 to 20 years, and 28 people aged above 25 years, some of whom were also related to tourism and the associated spheres. In addition, telephone interviews and reviews of the websites of tourist agencies in Kharkiv were conducted regarding the presence of ethnographic tours in their proposal, as well as the estimation of the resource potential of the city of Kharkiv and Kharkiv Region. As a result, it is identified that for respondents ethnographic tourism is a virtually unknown area of the tourism industry, unfamiliar are its purpose and the resources on which it is based, but the survey participants showed interest in visiting tours of this type of tourism. A study on the offer of ethnographic tours showed that today such an offer is practically absent within the region of Kharkiv. The reason for this are the lack of study of the purpose, resources and their geography of distribution, the peculiarities of organizing ethnographic tours and of the resource potential of individual territories. Prospects for further research in this direction are a deeper study of ethnographic tourism, its features, resources and resource potential; promotion of this type of tourism to potential consumers in the future; involvement of the State and local governments in supporting this direction of tourism.

Keywords

• motivation
• motive
• potential
• tourism
• ethnographic tourism
• cultural heritage
• resource