The competitiveness of tourism sector’ small enterprises in the transition to the digital economy

The article considers the peculiarities of competition in the tourism market, which form the external conditions of competitiveness of small enterprises, both from the demand and the supply side. These include the system character and interrelationship of the competitiveness at the macro, meso- and microeconomic levels, the role of the state as an active economic agent in tourism, the international nature of sectoral competition, the specifics of the assessment by consumers of the price and quality of tourism services. The internal problem of competitiveness of Russian small enterprises in the context of the transition to the digital economy is the limited knowledge, poor financial resources and weak motivation for innovative changes, though there is a need to adapt to the new, «smart tourism». In order to reduce the costs of mastering digital competences, enterprises need state support. It is proposed to estimate the competitiveness of small enterprises having integrated digital technologies into their business processes with the dynamics of quantitative and qualitative results improving in the medium term (with such indicators, as the profit, market share, sales volume growth after entering electronic markets network interactions; the increase in consumer satisfaction and loyalty, expressed in the formation of a constant circle of clients, improvement of corporate image and brand recognition).