New standards of tour service as a factor of Ukraine’s European integration
Authors: Zinchenko V. 
Published: September 2022

The article analyses one of the key factors of tourist services, which is quality of service. This issue has a particular relevance in connection with the process of guiding the tourism industry to global standards, which in turn is an integral part of the general European integration processes of Ukraine, especially in view of granting it the status of a candidate country for EU accession. It is obvious that tourism has become almost the first stage of the European level of service standards for our compatriots.Novelty of the research is systematization of the main periods in achievement of service quality in the conditions of independent Ukraine and new economic relations. The author used and analyzed the system of tourist enterprises “Sputnik”, historically one of the leading founders of modern hospitality industry. An important component of the article is a characteristic of service quality evaluation methods. Given today’s topical issues, an analysis of the main trends in the tourism industry due to the restrictive effects caused by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, and recommendations for preserving service quality in these conditions are worthy of attention. Of particular value are the conclusions on the preservation of tourism service standards under wartime conditions. Russia’s widespread aggression against Ukraine, has made the tourism industry in our country a global challenge, comprehension of the consequences of which requires a comprehensive analysis and scientific and practical comprehension. Relevance. The key problem of Ukraine’s European integration processes has been and remains the quality of goods (services) produced in our country. The processes of improving it and bringing it in line with global standards is a prerequisite for European integration, as evidenced by the directives of the European Parliament and the EU Council, as well as relevant agreements between the Ukrainian government and the European Commission and decisions to grant Ukraine the status of a candidate for EU accession.Statement of the Problem. As a consequence, the problem statement of this study is extremely relevant and significant, since it is devoted to quality issues as one of the most important in European integration processes.Research objective. With this research the author makes an attempt to contribute to scientific and theoretical comprehension of tourist services quality factor as an important component on the way to comprehensive European integration of Ukraine. At the same time, practical aspects of this research are important, highlighting the experience of existing tourist structures, formation of certain recommendations to improve quality in the hospitality industry, especially in conditions of force majeure processes.Methodology. To disclose the problem different methods of scientific research are involved, namely analysis, observation, comparison, which are used in the main part of the work.The quality of goods (in the process of its research) is the tourist service) devoted to the works and scientific and methodological publications of a considerable number of scientists and specialists in the field of hospitality industry: Y. Alekseev (features of modern Ukrainian ethnopolitics in the context of European integration issues), N. Alyoshugina (problems of creating a tourist image of Ukraine), R. Gischuk (determination of tourism impact on development and management of hospitality infrastructure in a crisis period), V. Kifiak (advantages and problems of development of hotel infrastructure in Ukraine), V. Zinchenko, E. Dubczak (problems of force majeure impact on the hospitality industry).However, despite the large number of works, the issue of quality, and tourism services in particular, in today’s realities, especially in relation to the restrictive measures triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the actual state of war remains extremely relevant and requires further scientific reflection.It is the need for additional scientific understanding of the concept of quality of tourism services as a factor of European integration processes that led to the results of the work in part:− systematization of the main periods of service quality development under conditions of independent Ukraine and new economic relations, which became possible in the period after 1991;− forming characteristics of modern trends in tourism and key concepts of quality, their relationship to international standards;− To analyze ways of preserving the quality of tourism services in connection with the restrictive effects caused by the world pandemic coronavirus and a state of war.Prospects for further research. Taking into account that the declared topic on the quality of tourist services is a rather broad concept, it would be reasonable to study separately the quality of its components, namely hotel service and catering, transport service, excursion component.All this could be the subject of separate studies.Taking the criteria of the EU countries’ achievements in these issues, it would be appropriate to use a comparative research method and focus on the characterization of the quality issue.