Tourism as a Factor of Local and Regional Development

Abstract

The development of tourism in the region can be managed and guided by an appropriate regional policy that has realistic objectives. The paper focuses on the area of regional development in the context of tourism within the local government in the municipality of Besenova (situated in Slovakia, belongs to the natural region Liptov and to the administrative region Zilina at the level NUTS 3), taking into account the economic, social and ecological aspects of the region and shows the impact of tourism on the lives of local residents, the operation of the local economy, the overall attractiveness and appearance of the municipality. It focuses on both the positive and negative impacts of the tourism industry on the locality, with the intensity of their impact depending mainly on the volume and structure of visitors who come to this popular destination not only from Slovakia but also from abroad. Literature review contains information about regional and local development, new trends in this area (e. g. triple, quadruple and quintuple helix model) and pros and cons of tourism. In the theoretical part of contribution are used books, internal materials and articles indexed in WOS or Scopus. In the contribution are used these methods: analysis and study of internal materials of village, mathematical-statistical methods (e.g. extrapolation of future values, trend analysis, absolute and relative number), analysis of secondary data & desk research, synthesis of results and suggestions for further development of tourism in the village Besenova. The results of the survey point to the importance of planned integrated tourism development, which will allow to exploit the tourism potential of the region, which has a sufficiently attractive natural and anthropogenic potential. Further regional and local development has potential not only for tourism, but also for employment, business, study and whole quality of life of inhabitants. It also could improve some macroeconomic indicators and increase competitiveness of region.