Anatoly Mazaraki

Tourism is an important factor in the development of the national economy. The share of tourism in the structure of Ukraine’s GDP is 7.8%. Ukraine, having a considerable tourist potential for the formation of tourist flows, is ranked 85th among 139 countries of the world in terms of tourism attractiveness. According to the findings of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the concentration of natural and recreational resources, objects of the world cultural and historical heritage can provide an annual increase in tourist flows to Ukraine by 4-6%.
Under the conditions of unstable external environment and unfavorable conditions of the tourism market, an actual scientific task is to develop the theoretical and applied basis for the formation of the national tourism system. Conceptually, this process must be consistent with the strategic understanding of the need to take into account the mental, institutional, cultural and informational influences on the economic interests of entities, which form a functional, sectoral, socio-economic, institutional and environmental subsystem of the national tourism system. This will make it possible to determine target priorities of such activity not only in accordance with the development of destinations, but also taking into account the possibility of obtaining socio-economic effects, in particular, synergistic, multiplicative and cumulative ones.
The goal of the study is to substantiate the essence of the national tourism system (NTS) based on the comparative analysis of the definitions of “tourism”, “tourism system”, “economic system”, “national socio-economic system”, which became a scientific foundation for determining the scientific basis of the national tourism system, its subjects and objects, conditions, goals, and results of formation. For the science development it is also important to obtain results on the structure and evaluation of the national tourism system effectiveness.