Theoretical and methodological foundations of tourist services functioning on the regional market in digital development context

The priority identified in Russia for the domestic tourism development focuses on forming competitive regional markets for tourism services. To do this, first of all, it is necessary to understand the functioning specifics of the tourism services market, taking into account the current norms and operating conditions. The paper analyzes approaches to the definition of the concept “tourist service” and the closely related concepts “tourist activity”, “tourism industry” and “tourist product” in relation to aspects of tourism activity state regulation in the Russian Federation. When revealing the essence and tourism industry role in the development of the tourism services market, the transformation of this concept is presented, the types of tourism activities identified in Federal Law No. 132-FZ “On the Fundamentals of Tourism Activities in the Russian Federation” dated on November 24, 1996, as well as objects and means of the tourism industry with the types of activities defined in the Russian Classifier of Economic Activities are correlated. This made it possible to construct and present the authors’ classification of tourist services types, taking into account their diversity in the market. The content of the concept “tourist services market” is defined through the allocation of tourist services as an exchange object. The essence of both tourist services on the regional market and the exchange object revealed in the study enriches the conceptual framework necessary to determine the development mechanisms.