Social tourism for youth as a driver of domestic tourism

The study reviews youth tourism as a part of social tourism and a system component characterized by socio-economic features and the influence of various factors and conditions. The relevance of the study of tourism in the youth segment is due to the increasing role and importance of travel for young people, which is associated with such qualities as mobility, the desire for knowledge, as well as modern conditions and opportunities in organizing their leisure and travel. Despite the events related to COVID-19, there is a growing tourist activity of Russians partly owing to the social tourism development and import substitution in the domestic market. The article is aimed at identifying motivation in youth tourism as part of social tourism, the links with territorial factors and conditions of its development. The study is based on theoretical and empirical research of youth tourism. The work applied general scientific methods and content analysis in abstracting scientific publications; a sociological method (a survey conducted among students of universities in the Russian region) including statistical methods (grouping, weighted average) for processing the data obtained. Research findings: referencing of articles of domestic authors on youth tourism, as well as the results of the author's empirical research made it possible to identify preferences in the choice of programs of a socio-cultural nature, due to their motivation to travel, as well as the influence of factors and conditions. At the same time, the conditions are determined by regional characteristics, including the availability of tourist facilities and the activities carried out in the implementation of tourist trips for social groups. When planning youth tourism development, it is necessary for Tour operators to recognize the peculiarities of youth preferences in tourist programs and events, focusing on the socio-cultural components.