The article examines the history of the Odessa catacombs, focuses on the history of research of underground labyrinths, and their gradual transformation from objects of scientific interest to tourist objects. We understand the tourist image of the region as the system of rationally and emotionally formed ideas, which are based on specific features of the territory, emphasizing its individuality from the point of view of the tourists. Tourist image always is woven into a certain historical context and social situation. Each era generates its special perception of the environment, changing the era creates a modification of tourist image of the region. The Odessa catacombs, which today are an integral part of the tourist image of the Black Sea region, also have changed in the minds of people from time to time – from their purely practical application to the production of limestone; for a while they had a negative reputation as a refuge for criminal elements, smugglers. At the beginning of the last century researchers have engaged in advanced studies of catacombs. Only in the second half of the twentieth century, the catacombs became interesting tourist destination for individual tourists, but in the 21st century and for mass tourism. Thus, the purpose of this research is to update the modern views about the catacombs and underground museums of the Black Sea region and their contribution to the formation of the tourist image of the region. The history of the formation of the catacombs shows that they are obliged to exist in their existence by the ancient Pontian limestone, which was extracted as a building material by locals. Today, the length of the catacombs of Odessa and its suburbs reaches for various data from 1.7 to 3.0 thousand kilometers; they are famous for their multistage and meandering passages of underground galleries. The first studies of the dungeons were done by the paleontologist O. Nordman, the geologist M. Barbot de Marne, T. G. Hrytsay, modern – A. Dobrolyubsky, K. Pronin, M. Baranetsky, A. Babich, V. Yudin, and others. Several museums were created for tourists: the Museum of Partisan Glory in the village of Nerubaysk, the underground Grotto of the Odessa Art Museum, the museum «Catacombs of Odessa» under the Moldavanka district and in the city center «Kantakuzen's Catacombs». The quality of images that arise in mass tourists is directly related to the process of knowledge of the territory. In this connection, the development of travel routes as a way of getting acquainted with the territory becomes especially important. Moreover, contemporary museums are interested in attracting a wide target audience; they also offer expositions of different directions from mine history to various legends about the use of dungeons, from unique paleontological finds to historical drawings and inscriptions on the walls of the catacombs. As a result of understanding the importance of the existence of such an invaluable scientific and tourist facility, as well as maintaining it in a proper condition for historical and cultural monument, influences the formation of a positive tourist image of the Black Sea region.

The article deals with the structure of the modern information technology system used in the tourism industry. It is emphasized that the use of information technology in each separate segment of the tourism industry, such as hotels, ticket reservations, the creation of specialized tourist products, is interlinked with all others. The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the using of modern information technologies in the tourism industry. It was established that the introduction of information technology in the tourism industry took place in four stages, from the creation of data, through the direct development of   information technologies , the development of strategic information systems and the integration of individual IT components      in a network of different levels, from local to global. It is revealed that the majority of tourist enterprises use both standard and special software in their activity. For tourism enterprises to carry out marketing activities successfully, the information market offers technologies aimed at the process of automating the accumulation of survey results, planning and developing a marketing strategy. One of the most important elements in the tourism industry is computer reservation systems, which eventually integrated into global booking systems. These systems provide not only transport services, but also hotel accommodation, cruise trips, location information, bus, rail and air connections, exchange rates, weather reports, etc., allowing one to reserve all major components of the tour. Tour operators use several classic approaches to building a reservation system. The features of the market of tourist services, the specific characteristics of the services themselves and the peculiarities of their perception by consumers determine the specifics of marketing in this area. The use of information technologies, in particular the Internet, enables businesspeople and marketers to explore new market opportunities for their travel services, to highlight and explore various market segments (geographic, demographic, professional, organizational, behavioural, etc.). Tracking relevant information can be used to predict the future development of consumer demand and identify new trends in the behaviour of existing and potential customers. The use of geoinformation systems opens up broad prospects for engineering justification and design of new tourist routes and recreational areas, the publication of thematic tourist maps and the creation of web atlases, etc. Thus, thanks to information technologies, a single tourist information space is created that allows all players in the tourist market to quickly receive real information.

The article deals with the issues of nature use in protected areas, the exploitation of objects of the nature reserve fund for recreational and tourist purposes.It is emphasized that ecotourism, which includes, first of all, orientation of tourists to the consumption of ecological resources – recreational aspect, preservation of the environment – nature protection, is an important direction of recreation within the territories of the nature reserve fund, support of the traditional way of life of the local population – social aspect. The purpose of the work is to find out the features of the present state, to determine the problems and perspectives of the organization of recreation within the natural reserve areas of the state level in the Odessa region. Recreational and tourist attraction of the region for visitors are not only a wonderful climate and water resources but also available on territory of the region objects of the nature reserve fund,among which there are 16 objects of national importance. According to the recommendation of the International Union of Conservation of Nature and Ukrainian legislation, most of the categories of objects of the nature reserve fund provide for tourist and recreational activities within their territories in specially designated areas. Thus, the Danube Biosphere Reserve and two national natural parks, «Nizhnednistrovsky» and «Tuzlovsky Limany», joined the tourists for both short–term and long–term recreation. With the purpose of ecological education, the abovementioned objects of the nature reserve fund of national importance are used to create ecological trails and organize tourist routes. Thus, the most popular water tours in the Danube Delta to the mouth of the river with a visit to the symbolic «0 km» of the Danube, as well as tours for the observation of birds. On the river Dniester are popular sport fishing trips, as well as landscape tours. On the relatively untouched coast of the Black Sea, including the territory of the national park «Tuzlovsky Limany» lies one of the most interesting and cognitive routes of the Odessa region, which includes elements of ecological, rural, ethnic and extreme tourism. It is established that at the present time, organizational and recreational activities within the protected areas of Ukraine, as well as the Odessa region are at the stage of formation, the result of which is that its economic efficiency is extremely low.

The article presents an overview of modern directions and approaches to systematics of recreational resources (goods). The purpose of our study is to develop methodological principles of systematics of recreational goods, taking into account their subject specificity and modern research approaches to the systematics of natural, historical, cultural and socio-economic conditions and resources. The article has been used development by domestic and foreign scientists, as well as preliminary author’s studies. Working-out of a scheme of recreational goods systematics took place on the basis of a dialectical approach, which requires all phenomena and processes in their development, interconnection, and interdependence. The article presents an overview of modern directions and approaches to the systematics of recreational goods and provides a general methodological scheme of systematics of recreational goods. The proposed scheme includes the division of recreational goods to natural, cultural and historical and socio-economic, as well as directions of use by recreational goods – public, collective and personality. The intersections of these categories are marked by the main methodological approaches to the evaluation of recreational conditions and recreational resources. For each direction of the classification and systematics of recreational goods, it is necessary to develop methodological principles and methodological means of inventory and assessing the corresponding combination of recreational conditions and resourceswith forms of use by recreation goods. Such justification also requires enclosed blocks of recreational conditions and resources and social varieties of use. Recreational conditions and resources of public usage are available for all users without restrictions of property rights; they are considered as global civilization goods as the “property” of the world community; they do not have the content of the goods and do not form appropriate market relations, as a rule, a global or regional spatial scale. Recreational conditions and resources of collective usage form natural and geographical objects and phenomena with different forms of ownership (state, corporate) and collective (group) use. They can be shared by common goods, do not have a form of commodity and not take part in market commodity- money circulation. Recreational conditions and resources of individual usage are private or group property of vacationers. They remain outside the economic assessment, but can also form their market environments with competitive relations and be objects of commodity-money circulation.

The article deals with the main periods of formation of views on the territorial organization of recreation and tourism from the moment of the establishment of tourism as an independent sphere of activity to the present. It is stressed that a great deal of scientific works are devoted to the territorial organization of recreation and tourism, which has a hierarchical multilevel structure with a system of various connections. The purpose of this study is to periodize the scientific approaches to the territorial organization of recreation and tourism, as well as to identify current trends in this field. It was established that the first period is based on the understanding of tourism as a systemic phenomenon, during this period the concept of territorial recreational systems was developed, and at the same time, the basis of the study of the causes of territorially uneven development of tourism was laid. At this stage, researchers began to pay more attention to the role of behaviour, and to general psychological factors that motivate potential consumers of tourist products, to the perception oftourists of destinations. The second period is characterized by the spread of the concept of tourist destination and the beginning of the use of clusters in the tourism sector. The third period is marked by the center-peripheral model of tourism development, the possibility of transformation of the territorial organization of tourism through globalization processes, the emphasis on the environmental components of tourism activity. The most developed means of organizing a territory is recreation and tourism zoning, which traditionally serves as the scientific basis of territorial planning and tourism complex management, and is important in the implementation of tourism infrastructure development programmes. Among the current trends in the spatial organization of tourism activities the process of clusterization is noted, which spatially occurs both on the local and global levels. One of the characteristicfeatures of the cluster as the concentration of interacting and simultaneously competing enterprises is the developed network of horizontal ties, the importance of cooperation at different levels for synergetic effect. It is determined that the characteristic feature of the recreational-tourist cluster is not only the complementarity of the enterprises belonging to it, but also the impossibility of operating them outside the recreational and tourist sphere.