The Evaluation of the Potential of Developing Tourism in Kysuce Region

Abstract

Abstract Tourism is an industry with a strong long-term potential of becoming one of the key industries in securing the country’s economic growth. Tourists are nowadays interested in not only getting to know the cultural-historical peculiarities, but also the way of life and cultural traditions of the inhabitants of the individual regions. Kysuce region is characterised by scattered settlement, which used to be a significant type of settlement in remote and inaccessible parts of the area in the past. Nowadays, however, the majority of the objects of the scattered settlement either serve as holiday chalets or are uninhabited.The aim of this paper is to evaluate the recreational potential of tourism in Kysuce region. Based on the established methodology, the individual villages were divided into five categories: areas with less suitable potential of tourism development (PTD), areas with suitable PTD, areas with quality PTD, areas with PTD of high quality and areas with the most significant PTD. These categories have been established based on the point evaluation of the potential of input indicators – natural potential, cultural-historical potential, recreational infrastructure and environmental infrastructure. The most significant PTD in the monitored area is the village of Oščadnica (279 points), and the villages of Horný Vadičov (231 points), Raková (224 points) and Nová Bystrica (219.5 points) were evaluated as the areas with PTD of high quality. Agro-tourism in this region is, however, the least developed, despite the location of the region being very favourable for such an activity. Its development could lower unemployment and offer a source of income of the inhabitants, or reduce movement of the inhabitants into other regions of Slovakia. Subsequently, the character of the landscape with all its key functions for sustaining the quality of the environment could be preserved.