TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AS A TOOL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REGIONAL ECONOMY

Abstract

This study focuses on assessing the potential of digital solutions and collaborative resource utilization practices (sharing economy) to boost tourism activity in small towns and rural settlements. The core proposition is that the tourism sector, characterized by relatively favorable investment return rates, has the capacity to act as a primary driver of spatial development provided it is integrated into contemporary economic paradigms. The central hypothesis posits that digital platforms and sharing economy services create optimal mechanisms for capitalizing on the unique natural resource, historical-cultural, and human capital assets of territories. The authors' conceptual framework positions the development of tourism clusters in non-urban areas through these tools as an effective strategy for enhancing socio-economic living standards. The applied research objectives are: 1) Audit of current digital marketing channels for tourism services in the regions of Russia's Northwestern Federal District (NWFD); 2) Development of an integration model for local tourism offerings within global digital and sharing economy trends; 3) Cost-benefit analysis and ROI assessment for the proposed implementation model.