M-GAM method in function of tourism potential assessment: Case study of the Sokobanja basin in eastern Serbia

Abstract

The Sokobanja basin is an area in Eastern Serbia with diverse geological and geomorphological features. Also, it is an area with developed spa tourism. The Sokobanja basin has numerous geoheritage features, which tourist potential has not been discovered yet. In this article, several geosites were analyzed, which present significant geoheritage formations. Geosites were selected by authors of this article based on the degree of their attractiveness for the geotourism development. The main goal of this article is to emphasize the geotourism potential of the Sokobanja basin and to determine the current state and geotourism potential of evaluated geosites by applying the modified geosite assessment model (M-GAM). A total of seven geosites were evaluated throughout the basin. The values of the investigated parameters were entered into the matrix of the M-GAM based on the number of points. Based on the research and the results obtained, it can be concluded that the Sokobanja basin has the potential for the development of geotourism, but it is necessary to improve additional values to become a true geotourism destination.

Exploring the Preferences of Iranian Geotourists: Case Study of Shadows Canyon and Canyon of Jinns

“…Its advantage is that it integrates the opinions of both tourists and experts so that none of them is favored throughout the assessment process. The model has been successfully applied plenty of times for the assessment of several geosites in Serbia [1,15,[48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60], Slovenia [16], USA [52,61] and in the Hungarian Bakony-Balaton geopark [39].…”

Saline Soils: A Potentially Significant Geoheritage of the Vojvodina Region, Northern Serbia

“…This new methodology has its roots in previous assessment models and studies, all mainly related to resources such as geoheritage [4,[38][39][40][41][42], spas and hot springs [43] and cultural heheritage [44][45][46][47][48], and their use for tourism. These methods have been succesfully applied numerous times in the assessment of various geosites [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68], spas [43,[69][70][71], and sites of cultural heritage [44,47,48]. The majority of tourism related subindicators were derived from these existing models and been adapted in this study for saline soil assessment, while the subindicators Geomorphological attractiveness, Pedodiversity, Biodiversity, Endemic and relict plant species and Ambience were introduced by the authors of this paper, based on the opinion of experts.…”

Karst Heritage as a Tourist Attraction: a Case Study in the White Desert National Park, Western Desert, Egypt

“…So it is necessary to take advantage of the desirability, inclusive attention region, and low charge of marketing via electronic media. The latter mainly refers to the use of Internet promotion and advertising actions that represent one of the key elements in marketing policies (Bratić et al 2020). Supplementary improvement of geotourism should be centered on the Geographical Information System's (GISʼs) usage and mobile presentations (Marinoni 2004), which embody one of the cleverest and the most effective means to bring geotourism nearer to a comprehensive audience (Filocamo et al 2020).…”