Masa Vukanovic
(Center for study in cultural development, Belgrad, Serbia)
Center for Study in Cultural Development for four years already, being a first institution in Serbia, popularizes cultural tourism as innovative strategy of cultural policy important for sustainable development of local communities. Serbia has resources, rich cultural heritage and unique natural beauty, Serbian contemporary art (design, comics, theatre, etc) is widely recognized, etc, but, even though number of visitors rises, it could not be said that Serbia has cultural tourism.
Project and activities of Center for Study in Cultural Development, such are Conference Culture, Tourism and Education, projects Reeducation for cultural tourism, Horizons of sustainable development, Co-operation and dialogue in building effective local cultural policies, etc, provide good insight in current state of cultural tourism and possibilities for its further development. Researches performed within several Centers’ project show that cultural tourism, though still in smaller degree, is recognized as a factor of socio-economical and cultural growth in Serbian local communities. Also, tourist organizations and institutions of culture expressed great interest to “use” it as developing strategy. However, there is lot of things to be done: improvement of inter-sector co-operation, creation and implementation of strategy on national, regional and local level, lobbying for modifications of current tourism and cultural heritage protection laws in order to foster cultural tourism, etc. Nevertheless, Center for Study in Cultural Development continues to work upon development of cultural tourism in Serbia.
Our intention is to present our Centers’ activities in the field of cultural tourism in order to reveal Serbia as cultural destination.