Methodological approaches to assessing tourism potential

The article shows the importance and role of methodological approaches to assessing tourism potentialby taking into account the constant changes in the increasingly competitive environment, macro- and microeconomic factors, instability of supply and demand in the context of the world economy transformation, which can be observed under the influence of the global COVID-19 pandemic, emergency responses of countries to overcome this crisis, the impact of the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine, which especially affected the economic situation of European countries, mass migration of economic and socially vulnerable groups of people. The purpose of the article is to study methodological approaches to assessing the tourism potential of countries/regions according to the experience of tourism activity in the EU countries. The study has used general scientific methods: analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison, quantitative assessment of statistical data and calculation of an integral indicator. The authors have determined that the level of tourism potential cannot be assessed by a single universal indicator, but should be considered as a complex phenomenon influenced by many different factors. It is proposed to use a method of assessing tourism potential based on quantitative assessments while using statistical data and calculating an integral indicator in order to assess tourism potential based on experience in EU countries. It is established that the quality of the study of the generalizing indicator as an integral indicator of tourism potential assessment can be increased by using various statistical and econometric methods or methods of comparative analysis. The authors have proposed to use the research process in 4 stages. The results of the study indicate that the integral indicator of tourism potential can be applied to characterize the regional characteristics of tourist attractiveness. This will allow not only to deepen the assessment of the phenomena under study, but also to obtain more objective results. Segmentation of countries by regional characteristics will make it possible to determine which regions have a higher or lower potential for the tourism industry development