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This study analyzes the issue of mining brownfields (sites abandoned after the extraction of minerals) in terms of their secondary use after revitalization as potential new sites of mining tourism. In the first part of the paper, we deal with the theoretical basis of the study, the conceptualization of mining brownfields, possibilities for their revitalization, and their sustainability for mining tourism. In the second part, we analyze mining brownfields as devastated mining sites using a questionnaire survey conducted among students of geotourism and geography at three Slovak universities in Košice, Banská Bystrica, and Prešov. The result of our several years of field research was a database of mining brownfields in Slovakia. According to our findings and the latest theoretical and methodological literature about other types of brownfields, we compiled a comprehensive definition of mining brownfields. The questionnaire survey confirmed that mining brownfields are interesting destinations for (mining) tourism with long-term sustainability. The equipment of the services did not directly determine the number of visitors, who did not perceive the risk and danger of visiting mining brownfields.

Leisure time and its quality use is becoming increasingly important in society. We can spend it primarily on physical activity, which offer many options, as it provides an entertainment and has a complex effect on our physical and mental health. Walking as a basis for hiking is the most accessible form of physical activity. Hiking is known as a low-level adventure activity, making it popular, and therefore, it presents an important tourism product around the world. The aim of hiking is the improvement of spiritual wealth, physical capabilities, mental resilience, and the general health of a person. An essential activity of hiking is the exploration of natural beauties and monuments. The tourist chooses a certain attractive place based on the route by which he can arrive there. The aim of this study is to provide a better understanding of the motivations of mountain hikers and to discuss the issue in wider contexts. This study examines the individual components comprising the decision-making process when choosing a hiking trail, such as slope of a terrain, relief, hiking trail surface, difficulty level of hiking trail, natural monuments, environmental attractiveness, and hiker’s internal motivation. The study contributes to contemporary literature on soft adventure hiking. Definitively, the findings provide important data in the creation of attractive and sustainable tourism products tailored to and planning for sustainable development of the territory in terms of tourism.

The study provides a methodology for 3D model processing of historic mining landscape, and its features as mining digital cultural heritage with the possibility of using new visualization means in mining tourism. Historic mining landscapes around the towns of Gelnica (eastern Slovakia) had been chosen for the case study. The underground mining spaces around Gelnica, which are currently inaccessible to clients of mining tourism, were processed using 3D modeling. Historically, correctly processed 3D models of mining spaces enable customers of mining tourism to virtually travel not only in space, but what is most important, in time as well. The up-to-date computer-generated virtual mining heritage in the form of 3D models can be viewed via the Internet from different perspectives and angles. The models created this way are currently the latest trend in developing mining tourism.

In the first part of the study, we have pointed out that mining tourism is a new, undervalued and less used a form of tourism, geotourism. We present its definition and present its specifics that make it unique on such a scale -by which it can be defined as a separate form of tourism. Mining tourism can be thought to contain virtually all objects, phenomena and processes, which, from prehistory till today, were related to one of the oldest human activities -mining and their subsequent access to and inclusion in tourism. In the world, underground quarries are currently used for various purposes, such as environmental, cultural centers, concert halls, wineries, churches, warehouses, and tourist destinations.In the second part of the study, we deal with mining tourism on the example of the most extensive underground stone quarry in Slovakia. Quarry, Veľká Stráň currently serves as the goal of unorganized 'mining' natural tourism as part of a geological site protected as a nature reserve. However, underground stone has the potential to become the destination of organized mining tourism not only for school educational excursions but also for the general public.