Principles of sustainability in rural tourism clusters: cases of the Upper and Lower Danube in Serbia

Abstract

The objective of this investigation is to put in evidence the difficulties what it entails the so declaimed sustainable rural tourism development. For that aim, we have chosen two tourism clusters of rural areas corresponding to the Upper and Lower Danube, in a country in Eastern Europe of medium development like as Serbia. The comparison is one of the essential principles of geographical research and in this case are allowed establish differences and similarities between a nature destination with strong deficiencies of infrastructure. On the other side, it is evident an increasing presence of international tourism and destination with better services and predominance of historical and cultural attractions, more oriented to local tourism. The exhaustive bibliographical and field research are complemented by a deep geostatistical analysis of information which are collected from year to year by municipalities. The results obtained are brought knowledge with views to a strategic planning on the path of sustainability.