Methodological issues of evaluation and rating of territories for the development of rural tourism

Todate, there are developed methodological tools for the training of managerial decisions on development of rural tourism at both the Federal and regional levels. Existing estimates of the development of rural tourism, definition and characteristics of its potential contribution to the development of tourism in General, predictive estimates have mainly an expert nature. At the same time, scientific and methodological justification of the choice of the leading regions for the development of rural tourism are poorly developed. In the present article the author examines the methodological issues of evaluation and rating of territories for the development of rural tourism. The results can be used by entrepreneurs and regional tourist administrations with the justification of decisions in tourism specialization areas, as well as tourism zoning and division into districts in general. The author picks out three methodological stages: assessing potential for development of rural tourism, definition of priority species and subspecies of rural tourism, identification of priority areas for the development of rural tourism.