Empirical evidence of tourism planning in hilly-mountain areas

The paper notifies the importance of planning process in tourism development in order to ensure maximizing the benefits for all policy stakeholders, while minimizing negative effects. Due to inevitable relationship between tourism planning and forecasting, the latter must be implemented in the line of formulating adequate tourism development plan and policy. The paper aims to quantify potential tourism demand in hilly-mountain areas by providing medium-run estimations in terms of tourist arrivals. For the purpose of the research, the case of Macedonia is investigated. Furthermore, the paper is rich on stylized facts referring tourist participation within hilly-mountain areas. The outcomes point to conclusion of having strong potentials for enhancing the up-to-date modest tourism results in mountain resorts. Although, the applied methods are not capable of explaining the driving factors behind the research estimations, the values can serve as a base for creating comprehensive economic and tourism development policy. Finally, this empirical evidence contributes to enriching the poorly developed academic work within this scientific area in Macedonia.