Residents' Perception Toward Protected Areas −landscape of Exceptional Features "Vlasina" (Serbia)

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

“…Furthermore, as already pointed out, better educated people are prone to believe that there are potential job opportunities for them and benefits to be had from tourism, and so their support is partly expected. All of these findings appear to be in agreement with results of previous studies indicating that certain socioeconomic factors (place of residence, age, education) can noticeably influence the opinions of host residents [12,14,58]. Specifically, the results are consistent with previous research in national parks in Serbia [15] that emphasized the importance of socio-demographic characteristics for respondents' perceptions (i.e., H2).…”

“…A number of studies worldwide have examined the relationship between host communities and the development of tourism. The varied local responses mostly confirmed that benefits are the major impulse prompting people to support tourism and experience it positively [14,39,40]. As for predicting the level of community support, the results suggest that certain independent variables significantly predicted a specific outcome.…”

“…A unique dimension of the relationship between tourism and the community is present in protected areas, given the existence of more pronounced environmental concerns. In the case of these areas, academic authors are unanimous in believing that finding ways to deal with community worries and incorporate them into the decision-making process is crucial for the long-term sustainability of protected areas and for maximizing benefits to the local population [13][14][15]. If protected areas are to benefit from the implementation of conservation-based management actions, the community needs to support them.…”

“…In certain cases, the inclusion of a territory into the system of protected areas also involves the resettlement of local residents, which sometimes exposes them to the risk of impoverishment and makes them hostile as a consequence [17]. A proper understanding of perceptions and desires of the local population can prevent such circumstances and produce reasonable policy guidelines and management procedures, as well as reduce negative impacts [14,18].…”

Residents’ Perceptions of Tourism Impact on Community in National Parks in Serbia

“…The residents' community perception of tourism impacts has been an important topic among authors dealing with development of tourism industry (Chen, 2000;Gursoy & Rutherford, 2004;Pérez & Nadal, 2005;Lepp, 2007;Sharma & Dyer, 2009;Nunkoo & Gursoy, 2012;Brankov et al, 2015;Petrović et al, 2017;Lemmi et al, 2018;Milanović Pešić et al, 2018;Jojić Glavonjić et al, 2019). Most of the studies on tourism's impact perceptions have been conducted on a specific destination, while studies exploring and comparing tourism's impact perceptions between two different destinations (especially protected natural areas) are not widely represented.…”