Current situation and prospects of the tourist market development of Ukraine
Authors: Pidgirna Valentyna , Filipchuk Nataliia 
Published: November 2020

The travel industry is a complex system with diverse economic links. It brings together a large number of industries whose function is to meet the growing demand for tourism products and services. Moreover, world trends in tourism development indicate that its role is growing both locally and globally.

To confirm, if we look at individual indicators using the analytical method, according to the International Tourism Organization, the share of tourism in world GDP is about 9% and about 30% in world exports of services and 6% of world trade. The tourism industry employs more than 235 million people or every 12-th worker. If in 2015 about 983 million foreign tourists used the services of the tourist industry, in 2017 their number reached 1 billion. World Tourism Turnover by the end of 2018 reached over $ 1.2 trillion. USA (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/). It is estimated that Western Europe and the United States receive the highest profits from tourism.

Taking a closer look at the characteristics of these indicators, it should be noted that during the period 2014-2018, the share of direct revenues from tourism activity in the structure of GDP production increased slightly from 1.42% to 1.44% respectively over the years. At the same time, in recent years, the total contribution of tourism to the GDP of the country has significantly increased, more than twice or by 97.6 billion, indicating that the tourism industry is gaining importance for the development of the economy and social sphere of Ukraine.

By region, the largest number of tourism enterprises is located in Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk regions; the smallest number is in Luhansk, Kherson and Zhytomyr regions (Ukraine).

Most European countries have a good tourist image, a long tradition of quality tourism services, making extensive use of marketing tools to promote tourism services. Being located in the center of Europe and possessing the potential of tourist attraction, Ukraine has every opportunity to become its tourist center. However, in the current context, our country holds a small share of the world and European inbound tourism market, mainly serving as a tourist supplier to these markets, which means an outflow of funds from the country.

Among the problems of development of the sphere of tourist services are following: 1) the political situation in the country; 2) poor information promotion; 3) inconsistency of the quality characteristics of the provision of tourist services; 4) inconsistency of legal regulation; 5) lack of a consistent state policy in the field of tourism; 6) poor quality of transport in the country; 7) domestic tourism.

To continue the transformation, the Tourism and Resort Development Strategy for the period up to 2026 was approved. In the long term, the economic effect of the strategic goals of tourism market development will be reflected in the increase of tax revenues from all levels of tourism activity, increase of tourist flows, especially of foreign citizens, attraction of foreign investments in development of tourism infrastructure, creation of new jobs, increase in the volume of tourist services provided. As a consequence, creating systemic and complex transformations in the tourist services market will help accelerate the country's economic growth.