UPDATED APPROACHES TO ZONING AND DIVISION INTO TOURIST DISTRICTS FOR THE PURPOSES OF SPATIAL PLANNING AND DESIGN OF TOURIST ACTIVITIES

Abstract

Recreational zoning and division into tourist districts are important tools used to solve various practical problems of territorial planning and tourism development. Changing approaches to the organization and planning of tourism entails the introduction of new principles underlying the division of a recreational territory in addition to the existing classical approaches. The expansion of the range of tools for zoning and division of tourist areas is becoming a vital task in connection with the increased role of domestic tourism in the Russian Federation and the strategic objectives set by the state for the regions with regard to the development of promising types of tourism and the formation of tourist and recreational clusters. The article provides an analysis of modern approaches to zoning of a territory with tourist specialization. The purpose of the study was to show the diversity of geographical methods that can be used in territorial organization of the tourism sector, from classical works to modern studies. The possibilities of each of the considered methods are presented. A comparative analysis of the methods of recreational zoning and division according to the basic principles of the recreational territory division has been carried out. As the most promising and requested methods, we propose resource and cluster approaches to zoning based on the features of homogeneity and coherence as well as on the territorial development degree and development dynamics. The paper provides examples of recreational zoning and division for the Kaliningrad region. Special attention is paid to the regional tourist and recreational cluster, for which zoning was carried out based on the level of intensification of relations between the actors. The paper provides a forecast with regard to further development and geographic expansion of the regional tourist cluster in the Kaliningrad region on the basis of its diversification and deepening in terms of the formation dynamics and development prospects.