The article is devoted to the theoretical issues of tourism as a science and considers the genesis and evolution of the scientific paradigm oftouristics, the establishment of scientific terminology (touristics, tourismology, tourism studies). The authors employ the term ´touristics´ and claim that touristics is a complex scientific field and an interdisciplinary research area. Glossaries define touristics as comprising an entire system of tourism sciences, tourist activities, tourist economy, tourist management and tourist legislation. The article states that the theory of tourism originated from economic sciences, which ensures a high level of development that tourist economy, management, marketing, advertising and holiday industry demonstrate today, each contributing to the core oftouristics. However, it would be shortsighted to underestimate the value of geographical and geospatial scientific knowledge for the development oftouristics, which covers geographical space as well as economy. The article views geotouristics as a distinct scientific field studying as its object the continual and discrete (discontinuous) tourism and recreation environment as existing within geographical space. The subject of touristic scientific research encompasses objects of tourist interest, constituents of tourist infrastructure, their nature-oriented and geo-ecological aspect, social and demographic features of the indigenous population and the changes they undergo in the course of tourist and recreational territory development. Finally, the article evaluates the methods and prospects oftouristics.