Exploring the Potential for Speleotourism Development in Eastern Serbia

Abstract

© 2018, The European Association for Conservation of the Geological Heritage. The region of Eastern Serbia is a highly dominant karst terrain with numerous geological and geomorphological features, especially caves. The speleotourism potential of these caves and other geosites still remains fully unrevealed. In this paper, we analyzed several caves with immense geotourism potential. These caves include Ceremošnja Cave, Ravništarka Cave, Resavska Cave, Rajkova Cave, Lazareva Cave and Vernjikica Cave. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the speleotourism potential of Eastern Serbia and to determine the current state and speleotourism potential of caves located in this area by applying the modified geosite assessment model (M-GAM). The results indicate that further speleotourism development should primarily be focused towards Rajkova Cave which has the highest main values. The results also emphasize the importance of additional (tourist) values which are currently at a low level among all analyzed geosites. This especially refers to tour guide service, interpretive panels and promotional activities which proved to be key elements at these types of destinations. Major improvement of these elements is necessary in the future in order to attract a larger number of visitors to these sites.