The concept of social-oriented tourism is defined, on the one hand, as a means of ensuring access to tourist services of socially vulnerable segments of the population, on the other hand, as a means of supporting manufacturers of tourism services in order to improve the efficiency of the use of tourist resources, as well as creating new jobs. As a socio-economic category, socially oriented tourism, uniting the interests of the personality, the state and society in improvement, education, education irrespective of the social status and material welfare, through additional sources of financing for various categories of consumers and the provision of benefits to manufacturers of tourist services, is a tool for ensuring public balance and the implementation of priority government tasks. The urgent need to create a favorable institutional environment for the development of socially oriented tourism presupposes the existence of a legally enshrined regulatory framework that determines the mechanisms of interaction between entities and objects of socially oriented tourism, which monitors their activities, as well as forms a favorable environment for the functioning of the socially oriented tourism sector. The purpose of the study is to identify the main elements of the institutional environment to provide an organizational mechanism for socially oriented tourism. The result of the study is the formation of a favorable institutional environment that allows to overcome a number of negative institutional barriers that impede the development of socially oriented tourism, and provides a fundamental basis for creating an organizational and economic mechanism for socially oriented tourism.