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Our News
Wildlife tourism – huge potential for National Park Tara
The workshop „Wildlife tourism – market understanding and development opportunities“ is a part of WWF’s regional programm „Protected areas for nature and people“ which started in October 2015 and will last until October 2019.
The workshop was attended by employees of „National Park Tara“, representatives of the National Tourism Organisation of Serbia, tourism and development agencies from Bajina Bašta and the region, along with members of the local community who are key partners with WWF in developing wildlife tourism offers with low impact on nature (high value – low impact tourism).
Jack Delf, a consultant from Great Britain with years of experience in creating unique tourism offers in protected areas, gave a lecture. The participants learned basic skills for creating tourism packages based on the principles of sustainable tourism, how to reach international markets, and how to manage growing tourism in their areas.
Delf gave insights into existing offers for bear watching in Europe and the potential for National Park Tara to develop this kind of tourism. He pointed out that in cases of sustainable tourism, local communities get to keep up to 60 percent of the money tourists spend. This is compared to cases of mass tourism, in which communities gain only around 10 percent.
„Adventure travel is really about giving experiences to people who want to do more than just sit on the beach and soak up the sun, and maybe eat good food. These tourists want to meet local people, eat local food, and stay in family-owned hotels, rather than the big chain hotels. Because of all of this, so much money gets to stay in the community. It’s the community that actually gives the experiences, where as in traditional traveling people just come for the beach and the sun, and are looking for the low price options“.
Delf, who worked on similiar offers in Chile, Georgia, Sweden, Jordan, Norway, Macedonia and Montenegro, says that tourists are looking for places where they can see rare and unique wild animals, get to be near them, and hear interesting facts about them.
These tourists mostly come from Great Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, are on average 50 years old and with higher incomes. Their travelling lasts around 7 days during which they are willing to spend several hundred dollars a day. They travel in small groups and are very ecological aware.
„Serbia is one of the rare countries in Europe which is still a habitat for brown bears, wolves, lynxs, and rare birds of prey. Mountain climbing, hiking, and biking are still the most popular activities in Europe and Tara can offer all of that, along with other unique and challenging activites which we’ll develop with local communities and protected area managment“, says Delf.
Nenad Lečić from the „Mountineering club Tara“ confirms that the number of foreign tourists in protected areas is growing. He’s convinced that the National park Tara and Bajina Bašta municipality can have a lot of benefits from a bear watching tourism offer, with no harm to nature. They are also ready to offer other activities to tourists, ones that can give them a more personal experience of the mountain.
„We suggested a craft workshop where tourists can make wooden rafts and later use them for rafting on the Drina. Or we can show them how to make Serbian schnapps in a traditional way, which they would then receive in personalized packages that the tourists can also make themselves. There is also a need for reparing hiking trails, and maybe tourists can be involved in that. For example, the path from Rača monastery to the Lađevac spring was damaged from a landslide, but it’s a cultural-historical heritage site which needs to be preserved“.
The next steps for WWF, protected area managment, and representatives of the local community will be to work on the ideas for new activities that can go along with the bear watching offer in NP Tara, find a model for business plans that will include all parties, and promote the tourism offers.
The workshop „Wildlife tourism – market understanding and development opportunities“ is a part of WWF’s regional programm „Protected areas for nature and people“ which started in October 2015 and will last until October 2019 and is financied by the Swedish International Development Agency – Sida.