The main problems of healthcare and wellness tourism in Ukraine

Abstract

The data of the conducted research testify to the high potential of Ukraine, taking into account factors such as favourable climate, location near two seas and rich natural resources for healthcare and wellness tourism. Significant weaknesses have been identified, which consist of an outdated infrastructure of healthcare and wellness enter- prises and the narrow range of services provided by them. Only 67% of the total number of establishments of the sanatorium and resort complex have service departments inside, but even if they are available, most of the health-improvement facilities according to the requirements of the National Standard for Accommodation do not even correspond to category 1. In the course of the conducted research, methods of statistical analysis were applied to study the dynamics of the number of sanatoria and health facilities in Ukraine and the number of tourists. Methods for diagnosing the state of development and modeling (including SWOT analysis, cluster approach) were used to study the functioning of tourist territories of different taxonomic ranks. It was found on the basis of study that although Ukraine has all the resources for the development of healthcare tourism, it is still a depressed industry owing to numerous problems. The materials of this research can become a practical basis for the development of this kind of tourism. The main problems of development of tourist infrastructure of healthcare tourism are described. The directions of its development are proposed: construction of new hotels, recreation centers, shelters, hotels, camping sites, etc. and reconstruction of available accommodation facilities. It was found that a similar situation is observed in the places of public caterin (their significant insufficiency negatively affects the development of this sphere of tourism ). It is proposed to create an innovative cluster of health-improving type on mono-territories, which will allow the best possible social and economic development projects to be designed and implemented, as well as helping to effectively build and implement a strategy for long-term development of the territory, which has favourable conditions for sanatorium and resort treatment.