Methodical Aspects of Tourism Research as a Priority Branch of the Region

The article describes the methodological aspects of studying tourism as a branch in order to determine its significance for the economy of the region. The main approaches to the assessment of tourism and tourist-recreational potential of the territory were studied. The main requirements for the assessment methodology, taking into account the peculiarities of the functioning of the tourist sphere, are revealed. The necessity of application the system approach is grounded, according to which the tourism industry is represented as a holistic system, the efficiency of which is determined by the interaction of its individual elements. Features of the proposed methodology are to assess the degree of activation of factors and the effectiveness of subsystems of the tourism industry. The final conclusion about the priority of tourism for the economy of the region is made on the basis of the value of the integral indicator - the intensity factor of all elements of the industry.