ASSESSMENT OF THE LEVEL OF TOURIST DEVELOPMENT BY QUALIMETRY METHODS

Purpose: to develop a methodology for clustering EU countries on key indicators of the level of tourism development, which will allow for an integrated assessment and comparative analysis of the level of tourism development in selected territorial clusters. Methodology: In this study, two methods were used to determine the level of tourism development in the 27 countries of the enlarged European Union—tree (hierarchical) clustering on the principle of «most distant neighbor» and clustering on the method of K-means. The indicators that, in our opinion, most fully characterize the various parameters of tourism development are the number of world arrivals (thousands of people) and the costs of international tourists within the country (million dollars). Results: Cluster analysis by the method of «tree» clustering on the principle of «most distant neighbor» identified 6 typical clusters by level of tourism development. This hypothesis was not confirmed by verification using another qualimetric method of analysis — clustering by the method of K-means. At the same time, the typical composition of clusters obtained as a result of elaboration of two methods was revealed. We can talk about clusters with a particularly high level of tourism development (in different variations, here are France, Spain, Italy), with a high level of development (Germany, traditionally allocated to a separate monocluster, as well as a separate cluster — Austria, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland), with medium and low level of development (there is either one numerical cluster with 17 countries, or 2 clusters with relatively lower and higher rates). Practical importance: In our opinion, the study of the main trends of segmentation of the regional competitive tourist space (in our case — the enlarged European Union) is relevant because it provides an opportunity to predict and identify causes or impulses to positive or negative dynamics «post-pandemic» tourism policy.