Open AccessSpecialized (niche) tourism: development of the concept in Ukrainian and foreign academic literature
Author(s) -
Roman Lozynskyy,
Іryna Kuchynska
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
vìsnik lʹvìvsʹkogo unìversitetu. serìâ geografìčna
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2415-7201
pISSN - 2078-6441
DOI - 10.30970/vgg.2018.52.10183
Subject(s) - tourism , ukrainian , niche , market segmentation , niche market , meaning (existential) , economic geography , destinations , marketing , tourism geography , ecological niche , business , economy , regional science , political science , geography , economics , ecology , linguistics , biology , psychology , philosophy , habitat , psychotherapist , law
The term “specialized tourism” has been widely used in Ukrainian academic literature for the last few decades. The analysis of main publications reveals that this term refers to different types of tourism, which are usually known as “niche tourism” in foreign literature. Another term “special interest tourism” or SIT sounds very similar, but in fact, it has a bit different and narrower meaning.Such a difference in terms between Ukrainian and English-language publications is caused by differences in economic systems of so-called “capitalist” and “socialist” countries in the past. The term “niche tourism” comes from the concept of “niche market”, which appeared in the western economic literature under conditions of market economy. Instead, in the former USSR, in terms of a command economy, the concept of “specialization” was more popular, so the term “specialized tourism” appeared.Due to the analysis of the development of the concept of specialized (niche) tourism in domestic and foreign academic literature we got the possibility to clarify its contemporary content.Specialized (niche) tourism is a set of different types of tourism, targeted at clearly defined and relatively stable groups of tourists forming market segments (microniches), quite narrow but sufficient for the creation of individual tourist products. Niches can be separated based on different criteria such as the purpose of travelling, special needs of tourists or special features of tourism destinations.The most important features of specialized (niche) tourism are as follows: well-defined and relatively stable target group of tourists; market segmentation based on aforementioned criteria; products targeted at narrow market segments (micronishes) and tailored to the specific requirements of tourists; niche size sufficient for the creation of individual tourist products.Key words: tourism, types of tourism, specialized tourism, niche tourism, special interest tourism, tourist product.