Assessment features of recreational potential for the health tourism purposes on the example of poorly developed recreational territories of the Kaliningrad Region

Tourism, especially water sports, is highly developed in the Kaliningrad region, due to the region’s location on the Baltic Sea coast. In this regard, the coastal and more continental and eastern municipalities of the region have an imbalance in development, manifested in the degree of development of tourist and recreational resources, the availability of material resources and tourist infrastructure, which, in turn, leads to uneven economic development not only of individual municipalities, but also of territories belonging to one municipal district. The authors attempted to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the tourist and recreational potential (TRP) for the purposes of health tourism. The integrated approach is conditioned by the diversity of recreational resources – in terms of genesis, functions, etc. The basis was the method of medical and biological assessment as the most important for the development of health tourism. The assessment of the recreational potential of a territory for the purposes of health tourism includes an analysis of natural resources, climatic conditions, infrastructure, and socio- economic factors. The purpose of the study is to identify areas that are underutilized in recreation, which are favorable for therapeutic and recreational recreation, and to determine how suitable they are for recreational tourism and other types of recreation. The article discusses the territory, which is considered as potentially suitable for the purposes of health tourism; based on scientific and practical material, the characteristics of recreational resources are determined and a component-by-component assessment of the key factors influencing the development of the territory is formed.