Digital economy in the tourism and hospitality industry: trends and prospects

The article discusses the basics of the digital economy, covers its characteristic features and scope of application. The authors analyze the condition of digital economy development in the world, reflecting growth of its share in gross domestic product, and the Russian Federation for which characteristic is the state initiative of advance and development of digital processes, but not business structures. The role of the Internet of things within digitalization of world economy is considered; in this regard the optimistic and conservative forecast of structure of the market of the Internet of things till 2025 is submitted. The analysis of level of the digital technologies involved in development of the tourist industry confirms paramount value of information as key factor in the conditions of digital economy. The article characterizes the information space of tourism, and describes the digital services and platforms which are widely adopted and succeeded by offices of the tourist companies. The offered model of the digital platform for the sphere of tourism and hospitality of the Russian Federation «Tourism 4.0» with the description of the principles, characteristic of it, can be provided as a result of a combination of key technological capabilities, namely artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, robotization, voice technologies, a blockchain. The presented «digital funnel» reflects the place of the tourism and hospitality industry among the participants in the digitalization market. Results of a research allow distinguishing the factors constraining and keeping development of modern technologies in the industry, revealing trends and regularities in the short term. Article is executed within a grant of an additional intra high school competition of Belgorod State National Research University on a competition of grants for support of the public and humanitarian directions of researches. Subject «Development of Model of Network Interaction in the Tourist and Recreational Sphere».