<p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Tourism, as a rapidly developing and highly profitable sector of the economy, plays an important role in the development of regions, and is a source of income at the local and regional levels. <br /> Assessment of the agro-tourism potential, which forms the grounds for tourism business in regions, determines characteristics and composition of the regional agro-tourism product, shapes new tourist destinations, and priority areas of investment policy in rural areas. This article summarizes methods for assessing the agro-tourism potential in rural areas, based on the need for comprehensive assessment. <br /> The concept of «tourist potential», factors influencing its forming and evaluation parameters have also been studied. Advantages of agro-tourism from the point of view of social perception have been highlighted. The stages of assessing the tourist and recreational potential and agro-tourism attractiveness of a region have been presented. The methodology for comprehensive assessment of the development of agro-tourism in administrative districts has been studied based on a classification of indicators that reflect the level of agro-tourism potential according to the Sturges criterion, with an account of specifics and competitive traits of regions. The use of generalized methods enables unbiased assessment of the potential of agro-tourism, taking into account specific features of each region.</span></p>