Abstract:The paper analyzes a competitive position of Serbia as a destination in the regional tourism market. The regional market includes Serbia's neighboring countries enhanced by Austria, Slovenia and Greece to provide a better view of the competitive landscape of the Southeast European region, herein termed the "Extended Balkans". The gap analysis was applied to the selected number of global secondary indices to highlight the differential effects that impact Serbia's position in different domains and categories, which in turn, has a profound effect on Serbia's ability to attract, delight and retain visitors. The emphasis of this theoretical paper is placed on the concept and methodology rather than on the selection of indices. The paper caters to both practitioners and academics by contributing to the literature on destination competitiveness through the lens of the positioning theory.

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The paper is a demographic analysis of the Serbian domestic tourism market based on the (n=302) survey responses. This paper aims to address the gap in the research literature that points to the perceptual state of domestic tourists in Serbia by conducting a perceptual demographic analysis based on gender, age, occupation and education. The research empirically proves the differences in the perception of domestic tourists about Serbia. The findings indicate mostly a positive image of Serbia as a tourist destination with higher marks given to gastronomy, entertainment, scenery, relaxing and casual atmosphere and hospitality. However, the observation shows that Serbia is not perceived as the first choice for vacation tourism by domestic tourists. Also, the study exposes that the level of education has the most differentiating impact on the perception of Serbia. A gap analysis was conducted using 23 perceptual variables categorized by awareness, quality, image and loyalty. The paper opens the door for further evaluation of the Serbian domestic tourism market and provides direction and the possible basis for the overall development of planning, investment, and marketing strategies.

This paper uses the customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model to empirically evaluate the brand equity of Serbia as a tourist destination, its underlying dimensions and interrelated causal relations from the perspective of domestic visitors. The study is in line with the previous research findings and brings new insights into the destination’s analysis; it shows that the Serbian domestic tourism market has not yet developed the critical area of destination image and empirically proves the importance of awareness as the most important dimension of the CBBE of the Serbian domestic tourism market. The implications of the Serbian domestic destination tourism market are evaluated, and future research avenues based on the outcomes are highlighted.

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