The thesis devised theoretical and methodological principles of geospatial organization of sports tourism research. The essences of sports tourism, its social structures had been disclosed, the place in the general systematization had been defined, and the structure and typology of sports tourism had been studied. The structural analysis of sports tourism enabled to identify more than 50 of its types and subtypes. The typology of component structure of sports tourism system proves that this system is one that is forming; it is highly dynamic and is capable of developing this important area of active recreation and tourist activity. Methodological principles of socio-geographical research of sports tourism had been viewed upon in the work by means of geosystemic, cluster and geospatial approaches. To research onto sports tourism as an area of complex and great social importance there was implied multilateral simultaneous analysis of the research object in view of geosystemic, cluster and geospatial paradigms and a number of propositions of modern theoretical and methodological interdisciplinary models of tourism study. Besides, it has been taken into account that in the geography of tourism there had been formed a powerful resource paradigm according to which the resource primacy (nature and recreation in the first place) is referred to as a determining factor in the development of sports tourism in a particular area. Their combination determines the level of attractiveness of certain territories for the development of sports tourism, influences the formation of demand and specific tourist and sports use. As a result, the spatial-resource approach proposed by the author allowed to expand interpretations of subject nature of sport tourism as an object of social and geographical research, to identify the subject of sports tourism geography, introduce andsubstantiate a new category of recreational and tourist resources - sports recreation and tourist resources. The author's approach is implemented in the proposed systematization of tourism based on generic approach. The methods of socio-geographical study of sports tourism developed and tested by the author made it possible to ground the social order on the development of sports tourism in the geospatial dimension, to develop methodological bases of geospatial analysis of conditions and factors forming the demand for sports tourism in the world. The work contains the macroregional analysis of geospatial organization of sports tourism, therefore conditions and factors forming the demand for sports tourism in the world had been studied, retrospective analysis of system formation of sports tourism had been conducted (as exemplified by the former USSR), the structure of sports tourism organization had been investigated, the major regions of sports tourism had been defined, world tourist and sports projects had been considered, as a result tourist and sports ranking and grouping of the regions in the world had been carried out based on a four-hierarchical system of taxonomic units: macroregional destination ? district destination ? local destination ? elementary destination.According to the functional characteristics three groups of tourist and sports regional destinations had been identified: tourist and sports district recipient destinations (42 areas), tourist and sports district potential destinations (55 areas), tourism and sports district generating destinations that form tourist and sports streams (11 areas). The suggested approach realized on the example of Ukraine made it possible to reveal structural and territorial components of tourist ant sports organization in Ukraine, study the resource potential, define tourist and sports destinations, work out the strategy for sports tourism development in Ukraine. Key words: sports tourism, geospatial organization, geography of sports tourism, spatial-resource approach, sports recreation and tourist resources, geotory of sports tourism, tourist and sports destination.
