Formulation of the Concept for Social Tourism Development Strategy in Ukraine: European Experience and National Realities

Abstract

The article aims at formulating a concept for the social tourism development strategy in Ukraine, taking into account the European experience and national realities. The article proves that the main function of social tourism is to create and maintain appropriate conditions that allow people to participate in the tourism process, i.e. provide them with access to recreation and the effective recovery of physical, emotional and spiritual strength. The study presents a generalized structure of the social tourism system in Europe, enumerating the supply and demand factors together with their key elements. Based on foreign experience, the work identifies three main systems of social tourism services, such as: specialized accommodation; holiday checks; charitable donations. The article suggests a concept for social tourism development strategy in Ukraine, providing for a number of measures to form social tourism in Ukraine. To specify the measures needed, it is necessary to use the SWOT-analysis data and results. It has been found out that these measures comprise several groups, such as: organizational measures; measure related to participants’ work in social tourism; specific steps for social tourism promotion. The author comes to conclusion that social tourism can be considered the basis for domestic tourism development in a country, because a high development rate of domestic tourist flows will provide a new qualitative level of development for the national tourism industry, which, in turn, will contribute to placing the focus of tourism on tourists, both domestic and foreign ones.

Keywords

• development
• social tourism
• strategy
• tourism
• tourist industry
• tourist service