ON THE THEORETICAL AND APPLIED SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN THE FIELD OF TOURISM BY YURI KHUDENKIKH

Abstract

The article examines the scholarly legacy of Yuri Aleksandrovich Khudenkikh. It analyzes his major work Perm Tourism: Territorial Organization and Regional Development (Perm, 2006, 190 pages). The contemporary relevance of this young scholar’s ideas in the field of tourism geography is demonstrated. His contributions to the theory of recreational geography, the development of methods for assessing territorial potential, and the principles of tourist zoning are noted. His work explores a number of fundamental issues, including the relationship between the categories of “tourism” and “recreation,” and also provides his reflections on the essence of tourism geography as a research field. The work is imbued with rational methodological innovations. Yuri Khudenkikh provided an original and insightful geographical description of Perm Krai’s tourism sector, its history, spatial mosaic, current opportunities, and design trends. The network of tourist districts of the region that he developed is one of the theoretical foundations of regional tourism policy. The scholar’s approach to understanding tourism resources made it possible to calculate the tourism potential of the municipalities that is difficult to argue with. The achievements of his short life are highly valued by Russia’s scientific community and tourism industry specialists. His methodology for assessing a territory’s tourism and recreation potential was one of the first to be developed and has proven to be the most universal and successful. Today, it is used in a wide variety of regions across the country and abroad.