Assessing tourism development: the case of Krusevo, Macedonia

Tourism in Macedonia emerged as a major factor for regional and overall economic development, which can trigger growth and prosperity. However, some guidelines for sustainable development must be laid down in order to preserve resources, ensure complementarity between areas and define tourism development. This paper intends to assess the current, as well as to disentangle potentials for further tourism development of Krusevo, as a famous destinations in Macedonia. Moreover, it brings an analyses of major problems and underlying causes, as well as describes the weaknesses that need to be addressed. The focus is put on the major opportunities for improvements, particularly formulating the sector vision of change and the vision of change for products and services, as well as the identified interventions to reach the vision of change. In order to meet the research aims, the quantitative approach is mainly used by conducting a survey among four target groups, thus covering the demand and supply side. The overall conclusion is that the destination has profound limiting factors for tourism development. Therefore, the current marketing strategy needs an improvement in order to overcome the spotted obstacles for destination and product development.