Peculiarities of Development of Tourism in Sumy Region in the Conditions of War and Prospects for the Future
Abstract
Sumy region has significant resources for the development of various types of tourism. Due to the war, tourism has suffered considerable losses, although it continues to work. The aim of the article is to study the peculiarities of the development of tourism in Sumy region in the conditions of war and post-war reconstruction on the basis of a sociological survey of representatives of the tourism sector and defining future prospects. The study is based on the data of a sociological survey, which was conducted from the 2nd of February to the 15th of February, 2023 as a part of the Estonian-Ukrainian research project «The Development of Ukrainian Frontline Communities and Tourism Business under War Conditions and Strategies for the Future», which is being implemented on the basis of the Landscape and Culture Center of the School of Humanities of Tallinn University. The number of respondents was 144 people from 5 regions of Ukraine, including 29 (20.1%) people from Sumy region. The respondents are representatives of the tourism sector. The sociological survey included 25 questions of closed and open type using the Google Form tool in various areas of tourism business. The Microsoft Excel 2010 computer program and the SPSS Statistics V21.0 program were used for calculations and graphical constructions. Before the war started, the main type of tourism activity for the respondents of Sumy region was cultural and educational, festival and event, sports and active tourism. Among the main changes that have taken place in the tourism sector in Sumy region communities since the beginning of the war, the respondents note the following: the level of interest in visiting tourist sites has decreased, attractive tourist sites have stopped functioning or receiving tourists; the level of population paying capacity has decreased and some tourist sites have been damaged significantly. Among the problems that enterprises of Sumy region tourism sector had to face, the respondents note: the tourist sites which the business was connected with fell into the zone of occupation or active hostilities and became inaccessible; reorientation of tourism activities to another direction; cessation of tourism activities, etc. The interviewed representatives of the tourism sector believe that in order to create new tourist locations in communities, it is necessary: to restore infrastructure, to establish a peaceful life; to create new tourism clusters, new jobs; to found museums, memorials, expositions, memorable places; to develop industrial tourism; to start community tourism brands; to introduce digitalization of business; to cooperate with tour operators from different countries; to implement a cluster model for organizing tourism activities.
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