Institutional, organizational and economic conditions for tourism industry “green” transformation

As the analysis of international and Russian experience shows, the efficiency of efforts to switch to a green economy model depends on how deeply one realizes the interacting processes between society, economy and the environment, as well as the existence of the conditions for ecologically friendly transformation of both the economic system as a whole and its separate sectors. The place and role of tourism industry in the global economy, the degree of its impact on ecosystems allow considering tourism business as a global economic sector, the “greening” of which would provide significant contribution to sustainable development. The importance of tourism also determines the relevance of management activity in arrangement of the conditions for transition to a green development model. To detect the organizational, economic and institutional factors, as well as the conditions for the transition to a green economy, we put forward the hypothesis on possible application of the world community practice in economy greening and implementation of green economy program principles in the domestic tourism industry. The green economy drivers and obstacles are determined on the basis of foreign and Russian research results, analytical reports of international environmental organizations, international statistics on economy greening and sustainable development, Russian and international legal acts regulating the processes of economy greening. Besides, we substantiate the obligatory institutional, organizational and economic conditions for ecologically friendly tourism industry transformation. We propose using the concepts of ‘smart destination’ and ‘smart tourism’, as well as cluster policy tools for encouraging green innovative modernization of tourism industry.