„RAILWAYS AND FORESTS OF HEALTH” IN THE FUNCTION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF HEALTHCARE TOURISM IN SERBIA.

The subject of research in this paper is the application of the hybrid model railways and forests of health (RFH) as a new healthcare and tourism offering by Serbia. The model is a combination of the Finnish health forests project and the U.S.A. project from railways to trails for recreation. The goal of the paper is to prove the initial hypothesis according to which this hybrid model could be successfully applied as a new attractive element of the healthcare and tourism offerings. Comparative method, case study method, and document content analysis method were used in the work. The research results showed that the RFH model is suitable to support development of healthcare tourism in Serbia: first, to activate unused resources; then, to contribute to the preservation of the environment, that is, to add to the sustainable development; finally, to prevent chronical diseases in the population and contribute to the rehabilitation of those already ill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]