Tourism as a socio-cultural institute

The purpose of the article is to study tourism as a universal socio-cultural institute of modernity. 
The methodology. In the process of research, methods of abstraction, analysis and synthesis were applied in the historiographic study of the institutionalization of tourism and its formation as a socio-cultural universal institution of modernity. 
The results. The study of tourism as a socio-cultural institute, conducted on the basis of a new approach to the essence of social institutes, confirms that the field of tourism is a specific branch of social institutionalization. The social institute of tourism is characterized by the presence of the purpose of its activity, functions, a set of social positions and roles typical for this social institute, designed to satisfy public, group and personal needs. The institutional status and institutional structure of tourism are expressed not only in the functional task of tourist activity, but also in the fact that, as a social institute, tourism acts as a system-built set of interdependent specific organizations included in a complex system, both internal and external functional and organizational connections and relations. This requires constant adjustment of the appropriate mechanism for ordering and coordinating the interactions of individual components of the tourism sphere, taking into account the specifics of its regulatory system. 
Institutional relations of the Ukrainian Social Institute of Tourism with international tourism organizations and the implementation of positive international experience in the field of tourism in Ukraine require further research. 
The scientific novelty. Consideration of tourism through the prism of institutional theory. 
The practical significance. The materials of this article can be used to develop programs or strategies for the further development of tourism as a socio-cultural institution in Ukraine.