Methodological approach to the assessment of ecological tourism as a direction of sustainable development of the tourism industry

The article recommends a methodological approach, that includes the analysis of natural and recreational, cultural, historical, and socio-economic factors to assess the potential of ecotourism development. The indicators and parameters of the assessment are established, qualitative and quantitative values are determined, they enable evaluation of the impact of each criterion on the assessment of the potential for ecotourism development in points. The authors identified organizational and economic factors of ecotourism development in the region: insufficient funding for natural parks improvement activities; lack of equipped ecological trails and routes; insufficient information and personnel support. On the basis of the proposed methodology, the potential for ecotourism development in natural parks of the Volgograd region was assessed. The article highlights risks of ecological tourism development in the Volgograd region: the lack of a unified system of state accounting and monitoring of the state of natural resources; low efficiency of control and supervisory activities; the spread of environmentally non-adaptive forms of nature management in the region; the low level of ecological culture of the population. The potential for ecotourism development determines opportunities for the implementation of main functions of specially protected natural areas: ecological, scientific and educational, socio-economic, which together forms a system of conditions for sustainable development of rural areas