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Along with the growing demands on the tourism and hospitality market, soft skills have been increasingly stated as the main prerequisites for employability. Therefore, this study set out to investigate the health tourism students' perceptions of the soft skills they possess with an emphasis on the contribution of English language courses to their development. The data were collected employing the tailor-made questionnaire which addressed 12 soft skills deemed the most necessary for the inclusion in the (health) tourism labour market. Students perceived their soft skills to be at an average to a moderately high level of development. Likewise, an average to a moderately high level of the contribution of English language instruction was noted. These findings indicate that there is much room for improvement and can be informative for various stakeholders in the education process. On the one hand, the study has revealed that the language courses have a favourable impact on soft skills development, and on the other, it has produced a relatively good representation of the enhancements to be made in this regard.

The Samokovska River, as the most important watercourse of the Kopaonik National Park, has been poorly investigated from algological and water quality aspects. This river is not covered by the monitoring program of the Serbian Environmental Protection Agency routine. Our research performed in October 2018 aimed to present an algal diversity, ecological status assessment, and negative anthropogenic impacts threatening this river. For ecological status assessment purposes, the diatom indices phytobenthos and physico-chemical parameters of water were used. The typology and the problem of reliable assessing of the ecological status were also discussed on the example of the Samokovska River.

The investigation of the Despotovica River was carried out in April 2017 with the aim to provide an indicative ecological status assessment. Phytobenthos and aquatic macroinvertebrate communities were followed as well as physico-chemical parameters of water. Ecological status assessment is given based on biological (epilithic diatoms and macroinvertebrates) and supporting physico-chemical water quality elements, according to the Serbian National regulation on parameters of ecological and chemical status of surface waters and parameters of chemical and quantitative status of ground waters. The ecological status was determined by the worst evaluated water quality element. Based on the analysis of investigated parameters of biological and physico-chemical water quality elements, the indicative ecological status of the Despotovica River could be assessed as bad (class V), which is the result of the river's load of organic and inorganic origin but also of heavy metals.

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