FEATURES OF LOCAL-LEVEL TOURIST DESTINATIONS AS GEOGRAPHICAL OBJECTS
Authors: Dudnyk Ivan , Pestushko Valerii , Saichuk Viktor 
Published: August 2023

The tourist destination, both in terms of its ontological essence and, especially, in terms of the variety of epistemological reflections, is imagined as a rather specific object, moreover, it is rather variegated and controversially covered in scientific publications. Following the evolution of scientific positions, it is worth noting their gradual structuring, which was manifested in the formation of four methodological directions of research: geographical, marketing (management), client-oriented, socio-cultural.

Geographical studies combine the interpretation of the destination as a certain territory, a geographical object that has real boundaries (continent, country, island, city, center of purposeful development of tourism, etc.) and is visited by tourists. This approach is probably the most common, and it gives an idea of the tourism product of a destination as a "typical model", which includes at least the following elements: attractions, tourism services and infrastructure, accessibility, image and price.

The results of the study and analysis of a large number of scientific and educational publications provide the necessary grounds for the following conclusions: first, all authors agree that a tourist destination is a rather complex socio-geographical system; secondly, the vast majority of authors directly point to such an important fact that an integral basic element of a tourist destination is the territory (geotory), this is a very significant argument in favor of the need to apply the epistemological model of the destination as a geographical system; thirdly, there is a rather large disagreement regarding the formulation of the actual term "tourist destination", where there are disagreements or even contradictions in different approaches (organizational, technological, economic, territorial, etc.); fourthly, the biggest, in our opinion, disagreements are observed regarding the definition of the concept of tourist destination, it is this aspect that deserves detailed consideration.

From the above, it can be concluded that a tourist destination is a relatively small tourist system (local territory), which is characterized by territorial integrity (compactness and isolation) and within which the visitor consumes a specific tourist product.

In order to substantiate the territorial dimensions (scales), typical dimensions of the destination, establishing the differences (similarities) of the tourist destination and the tourist region, it is necessary to start from geographical positions, while creatively using the results of scientific investigations and practical experience of the tourist process. The necessity and expediency of applying the principle of interdisciplinarity, adopting the development of traditional and modern concepts of geography of tourism, economics, management and marketing, socio-cultural studies, etc., is quite obvious.

The geographic approach combines the interpretation of the destination as a certain territory, a geographical object that has real boundaries (continent, country, island, city, center of purposeful development of tourism, etc.) and is visited by tourists. It usually combines geospatial, economic, infrastructural and resource aspects of a tourist destination.

Thus, a tourist destination should be understood as a territorially compact tourist system at the micro-regional level, which has a certain specialization and concentration of tourist activity, and usually includes one or several attractions. The provisions and arguments presented here, in our opinion, outline sufficiently unsolved scientific tasks regarding the geographical methodology of tourist destinations and indicate certain directions for deepening scientific research and should be perceived as a continuation of discussions.

Key words: tourist destination, local level, socio-geographical system, attraction.