Sustainability-focused rural tourism development in Western Serbia

Marina Vesić, Marijana Savić, Sanja Pavlović, Jelena Bolović

Abstract


Rural tourism is seen as one of the aspects of sustainable economic growth and socio-cultural development of rural Serbia. During the Covid-19 pandemic, international tourist traffic declined, and tourism and hospitality as service activities suffered serious economic consequences. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of pandemics on rural areas of Western Serbia, bearing in mind that the natural environment and rural areas have gained in importance as safer to live in. The research was conducted through an electronic questionnaire, by surveying the providers of catering services in this part of Serbia. The obtained results indicate a decline in the number of tourists (domestic and foreign) during the pandemic, but mostly positive attitudes of service providers regarding the prospects and sustainability of their business in the coming period. The data obtained in this research can be useful to local governments and tourism representatives in finding the best solutions to provide support to the bearers of the tourist offer of rural areas.

Key words: rural area, hospitality and tourism, sustainable development, tourism region of Western Serbia, Covid-19

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Serbia.


Full Text:

PDF

References


Chang, C. L., McAleer, M. & Ramos, V. (2020). A Charter for Sustainable Tourism after COVID-19. Sustainability, 12(9), 3671.

Collins-Kreiner, N. & Ram, Y. (2021). National tourism strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Annals of Tourism Research, 89, 103076.

Dolnicar, S. & Zare, S. (2020). COVID19 and Airbnb: Disrupting the disruptor. Annals of Tourism Research, 83, 102961.

Gössling, S., Scott, D. & Hall, C. M. (2020). Pandemics, tourism, and global change: A rapid assessment of Covid-19. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29(1), 1-20.

Hakovirta, M. & Denuwara, N. (2020). How COVID-19 Redefines the Concept of Sustainability. Sustainability, 12(9), 3727.

Hall, C. M., Scott, D. & Gössling, S. (2020). Pandemics, transformations, and tourism: Be careful what you wish for. Tourism Geographies, 22(3), 577-598.

Higgins-Desbiolles, F. (2020). Socialising tourism for social and ecological justice after COVID-19. Tourism Geographies, 22(3), 610-623.

Hu, F., Teichert, T., Deng, Sh., Liu, Y. & Zhou, G. (2021). Dealing with pandemics: An investigation of the effects of COVID-19 on customers’ evaluations of hospitality services. Tourism Management, 85, 104320.

Karabulut, G., Bilgin, H. M., Demir, E. & Cansin Doker, A. (2020). How pandemics affect tourism: International evidence. Annals of Tourism Research, 84, 102991.

Lew, A. A., Cheer, J. M., Haywood, M., Brouder, P. & Salazar, N. B. (2020). Visions of travel and tourism after the global COVID-19 transformation of 2020. Tourism Geographies, 22(3), 455-466.

Li, X., Gong, J., Gao, B. & Yuan, P. (2021). Impacts of Covid-19 on tourists’ destination preferences: Evidence from China. Annals of Tourism Research, 90, 103258.

Liu, A., Vici, L., Ramos, V., Giannoni, S. & Blake, A. (2021). Visitor arrivals forecasts amid COVID-19: A perspective from the Europe team. Annals of Tourism Research, 88, 103182.

Lopes, H. da S., Remoaldo, P. C., Ribeiro, V. & Martín-Vide, J. (2021). Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourist risk perceptions — the case study of Porto. Sustainability, 13(11), 6399.

Mertzanis, Ch., & Papastathopoulos, A. (2021). Epidemiological susceptibility risk and tourist flows around the world. Annals of Tourism Research, 86, 103095.

Mwesiumo, D., Halfdanarson, J. & Shlopak, M. (2022). Navigating the early stages of a large sustainability-oriented rural tourism development project: Lessons from Træna, Norway. Tourism Management, 89, 104456.

Qiu, R. T. R., Park, J., Li, S. & Song, H. (2020). Social costs of tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Annals of Tourism Research, 84, 102994.

Radović, G., Košić, K. & Demirović, D. (2018). Financing as a key factor of the strategy of susatinable rural tourism development in the Republic of Serbia. Economics of Agriculture, 65(1), 413-426.

Rastegar, R., Higgins-Desbiolles, F., & Ruhanen, L. (2021). COVID-19 and a justice frame-work to guide tourism recovery. Annals of Tourism Research, 91, 103161.

Tasić, J. (2018). Budući trendovi i pravci razvoja ruralnog turizma u Srbiji i u svetu. Oditor, 4(3), 7–19.

Vaishar, A. & Šťastná, M. (2020). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural tourism in Czechia Preliminary considerations. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(2), 187-191.

World Travel and Tourism Council [WTTC]. (2021). Economic Impact Reports. Available at: https://wttc.org/Research/Economic-Impact, accessed: 23.06.2021.

Wut, М. Т., Xu, B. J., & Wong, Sh. (2021). Crisis management research (1985–2020) in the hospitality and tourism industry: A review and research agenda. Tourism Management, 85, 104307.

Yang, Y., Zhang, H., & Chen, X. (2020). Coronavirus pandemic and tourism: Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium modeling of infectious disease outbreak. Annals of Tour-ism Research, 83, 102913.

Yang, Y., Altschuler, B., Liang, Z., & Li, X. (2020a). Monitoring the global COVID-19 impact on tourism: The COVID19tourism index. Annals of Tourism Research, 90, 103120.

***(2019, 2020). Republic Statistical Office, Užice Department (first results).


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.