Role of space and stability in the development of tourism

Abstract

In this paper tourism is considered by the authors as a geographical phenomenon which can be evaluated and used in a geographical perspective for understanding the forms and functions of tourism resources, together with the features of the demand for tourism. Tourism is one of the tools to achieve stable and balanced regional development. Separately, the authors consider the concept of "tourism space" and "tourism industry", as a result of analysis of which the authors have made the conclusion that essentially they are in very long standing and close connection with the locally-spatial aspects and elements. The paper discusses various approaches to the study of tourism development sustainability, their relationship with spatial concepts. In order to put into circulation and to assess such complex concepts as stability or sustainable development, the paper has been used already accepted structures such as a prism of stability. In particular, we have considered the indicators proposed by the United Nations (UN CSD), and the World Tourism Organization. The analysis allowed us to define the concept of "stability of a system" as its ability to remain relatively unchanged (save its structure and functional features) within a certain time frame regardless of external and internal perturbation actions. At the same time, we have distinguished three types of stability related with taking into account the spatial factors: 1) positional stability - relatively static notion which reflects fixity of elements of the system in a given area; the existence of systems and their components is related with this; 2) structural stability - a concept that reflects availability of the links (real and potential) between the elements of the system or different systems and having a static-dynamic nature; 3) the functional stability which defines the dynamics of systems, the actual existence of spatial interactions between elements of the system and other systems.