INNOVATION-DRIVEN OPPORTUNITIES AND SOLUTIONS TO PROMOTE EUROPE-ORIENTED TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The article presents an in-depth analysis of innovation opportunities and solutions to promote Europe-oriented tourism development in Ukraine, which is especially relevant given the significant lag in economic indicators of Ukraine's tourism industry against the world tourism leaders. The findings reveal that the tourism industry, as well as in Ukraine, is adapting fast enough to the global challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic and other crisis phenomena and is gradually returning to its normal functioning, even under heavy restrictions. Particular emphasis is put on the growing role of innovative solutions to boost the process of adaptation to new realia. It is argued that tourism innovations and reforms will contribute to promoting both short-term and long-term tourism demand, raise the number of tourism businesses and, consequently, will create more jobs in this sector, along with enhancing the quality and competitiveness of domestic tourism product and increasing the tourism industry share in GDP. The purpose of this article is to identify opportunities to innovate and search for optimal solutions to ensure Europe-oriented vector of tourism development in Ukraine. To attain the research agenda, a range of general research methods have been employed, in particular, analysis and synthesis, monograph methodology, as well as methods of abstraction and concretization. The study asserts that in modern economic settings to secure the European vector in tourism development, there is a vast variety of innovative solutions available to tour operators and travel agents, ranging from radical changes in their management and marketing activities up to diversification of tourism products and customer service models. To facilitate further Europe-oriented development of domestic tourism, a focus is also placed towards the essential role of innovation-driven transformations of a tourist product at the regional level which assume new services, new tourist attractions and travel routes or their modifications, including the use of digital technologies and new tourism types, such as glamping, immersive tourism, fitness tourism, virtual tourism, travel journalism, film tourism, etc. In addition, the study discusses the specifics of backpacking as one of modern innovative tourism trends. It is argued that the key pathway for the tourism industry to innovate is building a single national tourist information base with an easy access and customer-friendly interface. Such an electronic database will combine the capabilities of an interactive travel guide and a marketplace. According to the results of the study, to enhance the Europe-oriented development of the tourism industry in Ukraine, the government should design sound investment and innovation policies that will help to support both nation-wide and regional innovative projects. The summary concludes that the implementation of innovations will contribute to gaining a competitive edge in the global tourism market.