The evaluation of geosites in the territory of National Park "Kopaonik"(Serbia)

Abstract

In the relatively small area of the National Park (NP) "Kopaonik" a lot of exogenous and endogenous processes took part and continue to act until present day. In this paper are presented the geotouristic resources evaluation results for six geosites in the NP "Kopaonik". The experts on this field gave their assessment in three versions. The first one is concerned with the evaluation of the educative contents, the second one is concerned with the evaluation of geotouristic values, while the third version, which is based on the Modified Geosite Assessment Model (MGAM) offers the assessment regarding education, aesthetic significance, protection, functional and touristic values. The M-GAM method takes in consideration the opinion of visitors along with the estimation of subindicators given by experts, on whom relies the previous two versions. The include of visitors in the evaluation process leads to more objective estimations. Results obtained by this study can be useful for the improvement and planning of touristic activities on geosites because, bearing in mind their significance for the tourists, they indicate on the lower values that require more attention in the future.