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DOI: 10.18413/2408-9346-2025-11-1-0-1

Dynamics of regional disparities in the development of the Serbian tourism industry in 2000-2023
 

Oksana I. Ashirova
Georgii E. Popov
Uliana V. Mizerovskaya
Dmitriy M. Denisov

Serbia is one of the leaders in Southeast Europe in terms of the speed of recovery of the tourism industry in the post-pandemic period. Thus, according to UNWTO, the volume of tourism receipts in the country's budget in 2023 compared to 2019 increased by 79% and the number of visitors by 15%. Such growth rates were ensured both by an active communication policy, marketing and significant investments in the country's tourism and transportation infrastructure, as well as by the residual reorientation of locals to domestic tourism and a significant inflow of foreign tourists, including from Russia. However, within the country there is a strong imbalance between regions attracting mainly domestic tourists and regions specializing in international tourism. Hence the different degree of influence of the tourism sector on the economy of these two types of regions, and, in general, the uneven speed of recovery of the tourism industry within the country.  Based on the data of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, the article analyzes the indicators of the development of its domestic and inbound tourism, including the change in the places of key tourist "donor" countries, estimates the contribution of tourism to the economy of four macro-regions of Serbia (Belgrade County, Vojvodina, Sumadija and Western Serbia, Southern and Eastern Serbia) and concludes that the contribution of tourism is higher for the regions specializing in international tourists, even if the volume of tourist traffic is lower. In addition, the impact of geopolitical instability in Eastern Europe on the tourism industry of Serbia is examined in the aspect of turning the country into a migration and transportation hub for citizens of Belarus and Russia. The development of the tourism industry in collaboration of authorities, businesses and local residents, as well as the identification of the most effective tools to stimulate tourist flow and create a favorable institutional environment for the emergence of new companies in the tourism sector - all this is one of the key tasks of practice-oriented researchers of the tourism sector. The successful and not so successful experience of attracting international tourists to the regions of Serbia discussed in this article can be a guide for stimulating and developing inbound tourist flows for other countries, a significant part of which in the covid period reoriented to domestic tourist flows.

Keywords: regional tourism, Serbia, contribution of tourism to the economy, regional disparities, inbound tourism.
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Ashirova, O. I., Popov, G. E., Mizerovskaya, U. V. and Denisov, D. M. (2025), “Dynamics of regional disparities in the development of the Serbian tourism industry in 2000-2023”, Research Result. Business and Service Technologies, 11 (1), pp. 4-23. DOI: 10.18413/2408-9346-2025-11-1-0-1

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