Infrastructure: the essence of the concept, its types and application in the recreation sphere
The concept of “infrastructure”, the history of its emergence and establishing in scientific field are considered. Two directions of “infrastructure” concept interpretation are defined and understanding of its second definition is formulated. In addition to social and production infrastructures it is proposed to distinguish universal one, which is able to satisfy both the needs of population and production sector, that is, society as a whole. According to sectoral criteria it is distinguished specialized infrastructure, that is inherent only to a particular sector and is used only for realization of a particular activity (in the paper it is shown by the example of recreational activities), although its parts may belong to social infrastructure, or industrial infrastructure, or to their joint group – universal infrastructure. By means of modelling it is shown the place of infrastructure in the recreation sphere and its types. It is considered the definition of “recreation sphere” concept, its relationships with the concepts of “recreation sector”, “recreational economy” and “recreation activities”, as well as its belonging to the social sphere in the structure of social production, which is presented in the form of the model. It is given the author’s definition of “recreation activities infrastructure” concept. The structural-logical models showing the place and types of recreation activities infrastructure and structure of public production are developed. It is given the detailed characteristics of each of the recreational infrastructure components: institutions of recreation activities production and realization; health resort institutions; collective accommodation facilities of tourist destinations; equipment of recreational areas; tourist information centres.