Canyons and gorges as potential geotourism destinations inSerbia: comparative analysis from two perspectives – generalgeotourists’ and pure geotourists’

Abstract

Abstract Serbia represents one of those countries whichhave not yet differentiated themselves on the worldtourism map. However, it has an immense but still unrevealedpotential for geotourism development. In this paperwe analyzed several remarkable canyons and gorgesof great scientific importance and geotourism potential.These sites include the Djerdap Gorge and Lazar RiverCanyon, located in Eastern Serbia and the Ovcar-KablarGorge and Uvac Canyon located in Western Serbia. One ofthe main goals of this paper was to analyze and comparethe current state and tourism potential of these geosites byusing the M-GAM model for geosite assessment. However,the principal aim of the paper is to analyze how importantis each subindicator in the assessment process for differentmarket segments. In this paper, we also analyzed howgiving different importance to subindicators can influencethe position of the geosites in the matrix indicating differentassessment done by two chosen market segments.The research showed that general geotourists appreciateconsiderably different values when assessing a geosite incomparison to pure geotourists. The paper can be used asframework for developing the tourism management strategyof geosites taking into consideration the needs andpreferences of the target market segments.