The article examines the peculiarities of the modern development of the tourism industry based on the formation of tourist clusters. The tourism cluster is one of the effective tools for the development of the tourism industry, which is based on the interaction of tourism enterprises with scientific and research institutions and with public organizations and state and local authorities. The signs of the functioning of tourist clusters were studied, such as improving the activities of tourist enterprises by modernizing the market infrastructure; use of new knowledge in the process of providing tourist services; improvement of access to global markets; development due to additional investments; increasing the competitiveness of enterprises due to the increase in their incomes; improving the quality of management; effective use of resources of tourist enterprises and improvement of the quality of tourist services for consumers; creation of new jobs in the tourism industry and concentration of business activity of business entities. The advantages of the functioning of these associations were noted, in particular, the improvement of conditions for competition between cluster participants, their possession of various options for improving the effectiveness of activities, free exchange of information within the cluster, improvement of procedures for the implementation of tourist services and easier access to resources. The article presents a model of the formation and activity of enterprises within tourism clusters, which is based on the state policy aimed at the coordination and professional management of the work of this association. The effect of this policy is reflected in such performance indicators as resource efficiency, customer orientation, workforce efficiency and profitability, infrastructure, and marketing indicators. It is argued that the totality of these indicators can give an idea of what the state policy should be aimed at in terms of the functioning of tourist clusters in Ukraine, taking into account the peculiarities of the current state of its development.