Rural Tourism: From Geographical Constructs to Models of Development

Theoretical constructs of economic and recreational geography are identified, which could reflect the specifics of regional rural tourism. In this regard, the usefulness of using classical economic and geographical constructs is emphasized: "territorial socio-economic system," "countryside," and "geosystem." It is suggested that rural tourism in the Russian regions may develop according to certain models, which are directly dependent on the natural resource, production and spiritual and other subsystems of the territorial socio-economic system. Attention is paid to the development of a methodological approach to assessing resource potential, because it has not received proper development. It is shown that increased research in this area has contributed to the recourse to economic categories. To assess the resource potential of rural tourism, it is proposed to use the index of concentration of resource potential. The proposed theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of resource potential for the organization of rural tourism are tested based on the example of municipal districts of the Rostov oblast. The selection of this southern territory is due to the socio-economic efficiency of the development of rural tourism in typical agricultural regions and the suitable potential of rural areas without a clearly pronounced coastal-beach and medical-mineral specialization. Based on this approach, a typology of municipal districts of the Rostov oblast was carried out and conclusions were drawn about the resource component of the rural area of the Rostov oblast for organizing rural tourism. It has been found that Rostov oblast is a multi-resource territory for the organization of rural tourism and diverse models of the development of rural tourism based on both the production and spiritual spheres apply to rural areas.