Tourism as a Factor of Regional Development: Community Perceptions and Potential Bank Support in the Kopaonik National Park (Serbia)

Abstract

This paper represents a case study examining perceptions about tourism and reactions of the local community and bank decision makers to its development. The survey method was applied to establish the community’s attitude towards the impact of tourism in different spheres of life in the Kopaonik National Park (Serbia). The sample of 195 adult respondents covered inhabitants of 16 communities located within the wider area of the national park. In parallel, the potential support of banks for tourism development was examined on a sample of 21 banks. The survey results identified strong positive attitudes towards tourism and the presence of tourists among the local population. Compared to other categories, the community’s members employed in tourism had more favorable perceptions of tourism. The findings of the study also revealed that younger and better educated members of the population had more positive attitudes towards tourism impacts. Certain independent economic variables (the impact of tourism on job creation) and non-economic ones (the impact of tourism on activities of the community, reactions to the presence of tourists) significantly predicted the community´s support for tourism. An analysis of potential bank support showed that future community involvement in the tourism industry should be initiated by an adequate approach and credit policy instruments in the wider area of the Kopaonik National park.

Socio-cultural, Economic, and Environmental Effects of Tourism from the Point of View of the Local Community

“…Factors affecting the support of the local community in tourism development have been extensively researched in the literature. Factors such as community loyalty, personal attitudes, and perceived benefits from tourism can strongly influence local community support (Meyer et al, 2017;Brankov et al, 2019). While Doxey (1975) explains the interaction between local community and tourists in tourism destinations with irritation index and Butler (1980) with destination lifecycle models, they assume that there is a change in the attitudes of the local population, mainly due to the increase in the number of tourists (Szromek et al 2020).…”

Prioritization of Strategies for Development of Ecotourism by Means of Ahp-Swot on the Example of Kopaonik, Serbia

“…National park Kopaonik belongs to I category, i.e, to the protected area of the international , national, i.e, of extreme importance for the Republic of Serbia. The area of the National park Kopaonik is important from the aspect of preservation of biodiversity, particularly areas important for preservation of plant species -IPA area (Important Plant Areas), for preservation of diversity of birds IBA -(Important Birds Areas) and daily butterflies PBA-Prime Butterfly Areas [26] As [27], municipalities on the territory of the national park Kopaonik experienced drop in economic activities and consequentially a status of "extremely undeveloped unit of local self-government have allotted to them" with the degree of development below 60% in relation to the national average. Previous research suggested that that National park Kopaonik and its protected zone can be classified as neglected mountain areas, according to criteria of regional classification of rural areas in the EU.…”

Local Community Satisfaction toward Tourism Development in Pushkar Region of Rajasthan, India

“…In order to develop tourism in sustainable ways, there should be an equal and appropriate development of socio-cultural, environmental, and economic aspects of a destination [90,94]. From the output of structural equation modeling (SEM), it is concluded that there is a perfect positive correlation among socio-cultural, environmental, economic, and sustainable tourism developments, as the value of the correlation coefficient "R" was above 0.9 in all cases.…”