PHILANTOURISM AS A MODERN TREND ОF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The article studies the phenomenon of philantourism and its importance for the sustainable development of modern society. The relevance of the study is due to the growing popularity of philanthropy in the world, including among tourists. However, philantourism as a separate area of the tourism industry is still developing poorly both in the world in general and in Ukraine in particular. In addition, there are no clear approaches to its definition, classification and theories of origin in the scientific literature. Therefore, the main goal of this article is to study the theoretical aspects of the development of philantourism. The study highlighted the main theories of the origin of philanthropic tourism (the theory of «social responsibility», the theory of «gratitude» and the theory of «sympathy»). Theory of «social responsibility» mentions that philanthropy has become a modern trend of businesses, which later made an impact on individuals who wanted to bring philanthropy in their daily life, including tourism. Theory of «gratitude» describes philanthropy as a «thank you» response of tourists to locals, and took place more and more often. Lastly, the theory of «sympathy» says that donations were a response to hard work of locals at low-paid jobs in the tourism industry. Differences between the concepts of philantourism, volunteer and regenerative tourism are also analyzed, especially a feature of philantourism is the direct attraction of tourists’ funds to the development of local infrastructure through visiting local establishments and making charitable contributions. Philantourism is a type of travel, the main point of which is to make a positive impact on local communities and their economical state. It has been found that philantourism is a good way to restore the country’s economy, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Successful examples of such recovery are the economies of such Asian countries as Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, etc., whose experience should be adopted by Ukraine.