Ecotourism: An alternative to mass tourism in nature park “Stara planina”

Abstract

Stara planina has great natural and anthropogenic potentials for tourism development that have not been recognized by tourism experts. Intensive state interest for tourism development started in 2006, when started building of the master plan for winter tourism development at Babin zub area. However, most of the central part of the mountain is part of Nature Park " Stara planina " that can be endangered by mass tourism development. Within this context, this paper researches potentials for ecotourism, as an alternative to future mass tourism development. Started projects of mass tourism development cannot be stopped, but also they do not have negative impacts to natural surroundings. The aim of this paper is to represent ecotourism as a " conscience " , a correction factor of mass tourism development.