The article deals with the specific characteristics of operating of the market mechanism in the field of tourism and hospitality services, which must be taken into account in the organization of tourism and hotel business. In addition to specific features, to a greater or lesser extent inherent to any market, on which the services are main object of relations, the authors highlight several important distinguishing features, typical mainly for the tourism market. The article notes that elements of macro-environment that are usually attributed to the factors of indirect influence on the company, have, along with elements of micro-environment, direct influence on all the processes taking place on the tourist market. The authors also highlight the main factors that currently have prevailing influence on the function and structure of the tourism market. Among them are a global political situation, public policy and economic processes in the country and world. This article provides a list of current events in the world and Russia, illustrating the interconnection of policies and tourism market structure, shows the mechanism of action of the economic crisis on the dynamics and structure demand and offering on the tourist market, and among others considers the relationship between the development of inbound, outbound and domestic markets during crisis. The article also point out that tourist market by its very nature - is a world market and it is important to consider the interdependence of its main elements on a world-wide scale. This in turn affects the algorithm for solving the problems of effective tourism product planning and development of organized tourism on the basis of partner interaction of all market participants. This article analyzes the development trends of domestic tourism market, as well as identifies the main opportunities for the improvement of the Russian tourist market: the growing online sales, the development of event tourism, low-cost airlines, the development of regional tourism, the formation of a new system of classification of hotels and others.