Rural tourism: Serbia's missed chance

Abstract

Rural tourism is both old and new phenomenon. The interest for recreation in the countryside began to grow as early as XIX century, as a reaction to the pressure of growing urbanization and industrialization. Serbia has great potentials for development of rural tourism. Natural beauty in combination with culture, tradition, festivals, gastronomic specialties and music, might become recognizable tourist brand, which could contribute to the significant monetary influx and improve the overall image of the country. However, current level of Serbia’s competitiveness in the area of rural tourism is not particularly high, regardless of the fact that all of the natural, cultural and social prerequisites for its development already exist (natural potentials, significant farming land, great number of agriculturally active population, traditional approach to agriculture, lack of ground pollution as well as the possibility of producing „healthy food“, good potential for development of complementary activities such as hiking, recreation, hunting, fishing, riding and participating in everyday activities of the country folk, traditional local gastronomical specialties etc.). The goal of this paper is to show the resources of Serbia in the area of rural tourism as well as the possible development potentials of this form of tourism.