Indicators of sustainable tourism

Abstract

The indicators, precisely describing the linkages between tourism and the environment, social and cultural base, are not easily available. How ever, some relevant organizations (WTO, EU, OECD, etc.), institutions and experts, have been hardly working to create the indicators of sustainable tourism. Whereas the economic objectives are easily defined by the use of the traditional indicators used in national and business economics, it is very difficult to identify widely applicable environmental, social and cultural indicators. In order to stimulate and alleviate the process of sustainable tourism development, EU created the list of comparative indicators of sustainable tourism. In preparing this list, special attention is paid to identification of valid indicators of real tourism impacts on the social and cultural environment (the entire set of traditions, customs, history, hospitality and culture that characterize a given area), that is a very complex task. Assuming the fact that the related indicators have been analyzed in many European countries, this paper is focused on applying the related indicators in research of tourism development in villages of the Kosjeric community. .