Urban and rural tourism: formation and development

Abstract

Background. Nowadays, the development of tourism system in Ukraine is being modernized and revitalized. Rural tourism became a special segment of Ukrainian tourist market. It provides tourists, both domestic and foreign, with unique services of accommodation and recreation in rural landscapes, in the natural environment with rural sceneries as well as in private estate that hold traditional way of life, ethnic, cultural and historical traditions of the area. City tourism is relatively new part of tourism system. It is also being actively developed in Ukraine. There are a lot of city tours organised in Ukraine. Many urban tourist resources are restored and created. This influenced on the development of perceptual "image" of key tourist cities. Therefore, investigation of the essence, main characteristics and prerequisites for the development of urban and rural tourism in Ukraine is so relevant now.
The aim of the study is to analyze the nature of the urban and rural tourism, their unity and interdependence.
Material and methods. Scientific methods of dialectics used for urban and rural tourism investigations are substantiated. They are: comparative analysis, deductive synthesis, logic modeling, classification and typing, system-structural analysis, scientific forecasting.
Results. The ontological essence of urban and rural tourism in their dialectical unity and interdependences is disclosed. The comparative analysis of urban and rural tourism environments is developed. The definition of urban tourism has been proposed and rural tourism definition has been improved. The main functions of urban and rural tourism are disclosed. They are: cultural and cognitive, recreational, treatment and sanitary, entertaining, exhibition, event, social and ethical, business and economic as well as educational functions. The typification and structural analysis of urban and rural tourism is developed. Different types of urban and rural tourism using travelling purposes criteria are highlighted and analyzed. In cities they are: business tourism, shopping-tourism, event, cognitive, pilgrimage, recreational, treatment and sanitary, educational, extremal as well as perceptional tourism. In rural areas they are: sanitary, children's sanitary, educational, culinary, handcraft, sport, adventure, cognitive as well as multiple-purpose tourism. Basic forms of recreation organization in urban and rural areas are presented. Main directions of urban and rural tourism future development are highlighted.
Conclusion. The analysis of essence of urban and rural tourism in their unity and interdependence enabled to highlight the leading ontological foundations of the concepts of urban and rural tourism, make a comparative analysis of their fundamental characteristics, investigate the main functions and environment of formation of urban and rural tourism as well as disclose the main directions of urban and rural tourism further development.