The phenomenon of ethno villages in Bosnian rural tourism

Abstract

Due to its diverse cultural heritage and rich natural resources, Bosnia is lately becoming more popular among foreign visitors. Currently, many tourists are increasingly focusing on outdoor and rural tourism. To be able to fulfill their needs in terms of accommodation and activities, during the last several years many ethno villages are built throughout the country. The design of such artificial ethno villages often borders on kitsch and does not represent authentic architectural styles of the region. Some of them, as introduced in this paper, tend more towards mass tourism and luxury accommodation offers that are in contradiction to the idea of ecological ethno villages. On the other hand, many villages in the country are partly or entirely abandoned due to the population displacement into cities. This paper aims to compare the touristic offer and quality of the newly constructed ethno villages as a new form of rural tourism with existing, vernacular villages in the country. The research is a comparison study, also addressed by the analytical-historical method with the auxiliary method of the case study which incorporated recordings of site conditions. The focus of this research is the village Idbar and its prospects that offer a solid base for further development of ecological ethno tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which could potentially become one of the leading branches of rural tourism in the country.