Cruise tourism in Ukraine: trends and development prospects

In the article the Ukrainian market of cruise tourism has been analysed, and the stages of cruise tourist product formation by leading market players, "UDP-pasflot" division and "Chervona Ruta" company, have been compared. The research suggests that the operation of "UDP-pasflot" is efficient due to cooperation with cruise line operators which by freighting ships form cruise tourist product and sell it on their own. The operation of "Chervona Ruta" company is affected by general business factors, since the company itself sets up the routes of cruise tourist product and markets them. Based on the SPACE-analysis method, the windowed estimate of operation criteria has been made, and the vector of recommended strategy for "UDP-pasflot" division and "Chervona Ruta" company has been projected within the SPACE coordinates frame. The strategy of “Chervona Ruta†company corresponds to the active product line policy that characterizes the innovative receptivity due to the necessity to implement an innovative cruise tourism product within traditional market sectors and the ones being new for the company. The strategy of “UDP-pasflot†division is rather conservative, that is defined through the improvement of cruise tourist product, including service quality and travel security surveillance. While the inbound cruise tourism is more common for Ukraine, the fleet is out-of-date, the modernization of cruise infrastructure requires considerable investment, the cruise tourism has a significant development potential and the international cruise lines operators are ready to cooperate and invest funds in its development, but the imperfection of Ukrainian legislation, the lack of various forms of public-private partnership, failure of authorities to understand the prospects of tourism field force the companies providing cruise tourism services not to compete, but to survive.