Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2022 number 2

The lack of generally accepted understanding of the essence of green tourism and the mechanism of switching tourism to green economy constitutes a scientific problem. By analyzing both domestic and foreign tourism clustering theory and practice, as well as the rapidly emerging green economy conception, we have managed to put forward a hypothesis about the possibility and expediency of integrating the processes of clustering and tourism ecologization, and the ability of a green tourism cluster to operate as one of the tools in the mechanism of green tourism transformation. The purposes of the study are as follows: to develop a conceptual model of a green tourism cluster as a tool for tourism ecologization, to identify possible influence of its activities on the processes of environmentally oriented transformation of the sectoral and regional economy. The study uses a methodological approach to greening tourism, integrating clustering and ecologization processes with a broad understanding of green economy as applied to the tourism sector. The paper concludes as we define and draw a conceptual model for the green tourism cluster. That includes the structure of a simulated system, participants, main internal and external connections, goals and principles of interaction, and expected system effects resulting from the green tourism cluster’s activity. Whether the cluster approach is applicable to the problem of tourism ecologization is poorly studied, which determines further prospects of research. The conceptualization of green tourism clusters will allow improving the efficiency of already established tourism clusters, ensuring their competitiveness by entering new, green markets, and creating regional-level entities actively transitioning to green economy.