The potential of the cultural tourism as a direction of the tourist industry: an integrated approach

The cultural tourism is increasingly perceived as a resource for the territorial development in the post-industrial era. In this article, the author cites the most relevant and the detailed definitions of the cultural tourism, revealing its essence as an independent direction of the tourism industry with specific features that require the reflection and the study. Currently, the cultural tourism performs the economic, cognitive, educational, communicational and peacemaking functions. It has a unique ideological and educational value, which provides the interaction, the dialogue of cultures, as well as the interaction and the mutual enrichment of the national, regional or territorial cultures that are self-described the tourist for the perception, the knowledge, the culture and the carrier indeed. The study stresses that its potential must be adequately assessed and used primarily at a specific territorial level - the regional one as well as to be an effective resource for the economic and socio-cultural development of the country's cultural tourism. The author proposes an integrated approach, which involves highlighting and clarifying the main structural elements of the cultural tourism as an optimal methodological tool for assessing tourism potential, and considering the main aspects of its formation and its development. Particular attention is paid to the definition of the algorithm for applying an integrated approach to analyze the potential of the cultural tourism as a direction of the tourist industry. Three stages of the system analysis and the identification of trends and the directions for the development of the cultural tourism in a particular region are considered. The key components of the tourism potential of the region are analyzed and described: the natural resource, the historical and the cultural, the social and the economic potentials. The author carries out a gradation of factors that have a systemic impact on the development of the cultural tourism. He also emphasizes that it is necessary to take into account their typology (subject, non-subject), as well as the regional specifics when evaluating the cultural and tourist resources and gives recommendations on the optimizing tourism activities at the regional level. The article describes the introduction of innovative market mechanisms in the cultural and tourist activities as an important condition for the successful development of the cultural tourism. So, one of the ways of the sustainable development of the region is the cluster approach, in which the territorial formations become the object of the state policy, is to allow using all components of the resource potential in tourism and to create complex tourist facilities. In conclusion, the author emphasizes that the cultural tourism in the modern conditions plays a significant role in the economic and the socio-cultural sphere of the society, in shaping the cultural policy, and understanding the place of the culture in the social development.

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