**Preface to "Tourism Economics"**

The issues relating to the functioning of the tourism economy include both the activities of tourism enterprises and spatial units, i.e., tourism destinations, as well as tourism demand, including tourists' purchasing behavior. The aim of the Special Issue of *Economies* is to present the current results of research on the functioning of the tourism market and its individual elements.

The presented studies refer to four groups of issues:


Particular attention should be paid to studies on tourist destinations and available offers in their areas. These issues constitute a significant extension of market issues because the entities shaping the offer are not only tourist entrepreneurs, but also non-profit entities in the European Union countries as well as local government entities and cooperating units (Panasiuk 2019b). An important element complementing the functioning of the tourism market is the tourism policy, taking into account the position of the state and its organs on this market (Panasiuk and Wszendybył-Skulska 2021) along with the principles of its regulation (Panasiuk 2021).

From the point of view of demand, i.e., the direction to which tourist traffic is headed, a tourist destination is understood as a destination (town, region, country) related to its characteristic functions and properties. From the point of view of economic issues, a tourist destination should be interpreted from the subjective perspective as a unit or set of units of the tourist market, operating in the tourist area, dealing with the creation of conditions for tourism, as well as creating, sharing and promoting the tourist offers in this area. It is the basic unit of the modern tourism market which, thanks to its uniqueness and individuality in creating new, diversified tourist offers based on specific features, can meet its requirements. Thus, a tourist destination is not only a place, but a system of institutions for managing the tourist offers of a place, i.e., an area tourist product, for which competent entities representing the destination are responsible (Panasiuk 2020b).

The offers of a tourist destination (Panasiuk 2017) include partial offers of tourist entrepreneurs who primarily provide the following services: accommodation, catering, transport, organization of tourism, tourist information, entities providing tourist attractions and other products available in its area, as well as the economic activity of public entities and tourist organizations that create a comprehensive tourist offer in the area.

More specifically, the economic issues of tourism should also include market structures, conditions for starting a business, competitiveness, quality of tourist services and changes in market regulations, especially domestic, but also global, e.g., related to tourist traffic. The area which is currently the most problematic is the functioning of the tourism market in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the directions of its reconstruction. Attention should also be paid to other crisis phenomena (Panasiuk 2019a) that are already relevant and may soon have a greater impact, such as the climate crisis and migration crises in some regions of the world (social, political, climate). Therefore, the issues of sustainable tourism (Panasiuk 2021a), including overtourism, and social issues, such as tourism-phobia, are also important. The functioning of the tourism market is also influenced by new technologies, artificial intelligence, robotization (Panasiuk 2015), and thus the creation of alternative ways to spend free time. These subject areas can therefore be addressed in the next issue of the *Economies* Special Issue.

As the guest editor of this Special Issue of Economies, I would like to express my gratitude to the authors who prepared articles in line with the subject of the Special Issue and decided to share their original research results in the journal. I would like to thank the scientific editors supervising the stages of the publishing procedure and the reviewers for their substantive contribution to the creation of this issue. I would like to thank the editors of the journal and the publishing house for the opportunity to cooperate and achieve a joint publishing result.
