Impact of congress tourism on the international tourism image of a state

The article substantiates the necessity for creation of tourism image of a state. It is an integral component of the overall international image. It has been established that the tourism image is closely related with geopolitical, climatic, socio-economic and other components. Tourism image helps to support and develop the historical and cultural potential of the territory and contributes to the strengthening of partnership among countries. It is proved that business, cultural and scientific relations among countries take a special place in the tourism image system. They have complex impact on the national economy development and its integration into the world market, thereby creating a special kind of tourism - business (congress) tourism. The author reveals the factors forming tourism image of a state and gives its generalized assessment on the basis of a comparative analysis of the main economic indicators of tourism development of the most demanded tourist destinations. The author carried out economic and mathematical modeling by constructing correlation and regression equation based on the information about 20 countries of the world. It gives possibility to assess the degree of influence of the number of tourists visiting one or another tourism area, investments in the tourism development and the sum of international communicational events on the level of direct income from tourism. It has been established that the greatest impact on the formation of a profitable part of the tourism industry have capital investments in the tourist infrastructure and the number of held communicational events that directly or indirectly create the concept of host country. The author argues that the activity relating with international events includes the economic, infrastructural, psychological, and service aspects, which together form a tourism image of a state.