MANAGEMENT OF COUNTRYSIDE WALKING TOURISM THROUGH UNDERSTANDING USERS AND THEIR NEEDS

Danka Milojković; Katarina Milojković; Hristina Milojković

doi:10.35120/sciencej0203043m

Authors

Danka Milojković Singidunum University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4434-9576
Katarina Milojković Singidunum University, Republic of Serbia
Hristina Milojković Singidunum University, Republic of Serbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35120/sciencej0203043m

Keywords:

management, needs, tourism, village, walking

Abstract

Walking tourism, among the most attractive manners to observe a destination and satisfy the growing demand of visitors for outdoor activities, allows tourists to interact closely with local nature, people, tradition, culture, and heritage. Walking tourism needs low investments and can be developed anywhere. The impacts of greenspace on people’s physical and mental health contribute to the accelerated development of this form of tourism. By better understanding users, it is more likely to develop a product or service that works for them. Despite the efforts of urban areas to become greener and more attractive (Callaghan et al., 2021), rural areas have unique and pristine natural resources that cannot be created artificially. In addition, life in the village is still traditional, peaceful, and easy, customs are respected, and the cultural heritage has been preserved from the influence of the modern, high-tech age and global market trends (Štetić & Šimičević, 2017). When developing a nature tourism product, the focal question is related to real user needs. Such as the lack of information about user needs accounts for 35% of total reasons for start-ups’ failures (CBInsights, 2021), this logic can also easily apply to tourism destinations. To learn about user needs, the starting point is to research users and their motivations, triggers, and context for using the product or service. Considering the impact of greenspace on people’s physical and mental health, countryside walking tourism (CWT), with the village as the pivot of tourist activities, is a rapidly developing form of rural tourism. Properly developed and managed, walking tourism brings social-economic benefits to destinations and gains a significant place in regional sustainable development (Milojković et al., 2023a). CWT, with the village as the pivot of tourist activities, is a rapidly developing form of rural tourism (Milojković et al., 2023b). Understanding users and their needs-based CWT management reduces the risk of expensive failures, ensures timely delivery, sets up and manages a team to design, build, and maintain a product or service, and opens space for innovations. The research purpose is to perceive users of the countryside walking tours and their needs during those tours. Among the general scientific methods, the statistical method and the hypothetico-deductive method were used. The research data were collected using the questionnaire-based survey technique and processed by SPSS. The general results indicated that the management of CWT should target meeting user needs for visiting hidden and original places with a local guide, consuming and buying authentic food and drinks, and raising awareness and building communicative capacities of the local population. The research contribution is to improve the management of rural tourism destinations based on understanding users and their needs for countryside walking tours.

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Author Biography

Danka Milojković, Singidunum University

Danka Milojkovic (1971), an Assistant Professor in the scientific field of Management at the Singidunum University in Belgrade Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management and Faculty of IT, is a Graduate Management Engineer from the Faculty of Organizational Science of the University of Belgrade – Program in Management (1997). She defended her master's thesis entitled “Possibilities for Appling Strategic Management to Serbian Enterprises” at the Faculty of Organizational Science of the University of Belgrade (2008) becoming a Master of Engineering Science in the field of Organizational Science for Management. She defended a doctoral dissertation entitled “Application of Mathematical Methods in Planning Cluster Organizations’ Development in the Republic of Serbia“ at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Nis becoming a Ph.D. in Economic Science (2015).

She started her professional career as a scholarship holder of the Serbian Ministry of Science and Technology, an intern gifted for scientific research and educational work at the Faculty of Organizational Science in Belgrade. For more than two decades, he has been performing development, research, and educational-promotional work in the business sector, domestic and international organizations, and academic institutions.

She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Innovation, Competitiveness and Clusters “Global TCI Network” in Barcelona (2014/19), a member of EU / ECCP & ESCA working groups (since 2017), a president of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce Cluster Council (2011/15), and a member of the working group of the National Training Incubation Training Program supported by the SINTEF/ENTRANSE program in Serbia (2005/6).

Since 1997 she has been an author and a participant in a large number of SMEs development projects, a speaker at international conferences, and a guest lecturer at academic institutions and professional gatherings at the University "Cyril and Methodius" in Skopje, Faculty of Economics in Nis, University of Transylvania in Brasov (Romania), Kazan (Russia), Daegu (South Korea), Eindhoven (Netherlands) and Puerto Vallarta (Mexico).

She is an author of the original business development model “Cluster House” for a cluster approach to local economic development in the Balkans, with the transcontinental application of the model in Egypt and Peru. She is an author/co-author of 18 journal articles, 23 conference papers, and the 3 chapters of thematic monographs.

She is a winner of the following national awards: "The Flower of Success" for the promotion of women's entrepreneurship in Southern Serbia (2012), and “The Captain Misa Anastasijevic” for entrepreneurship development in the Year of Entrepreneurship in Serbia (2016).

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