Indicators of touristic development of spa centers of Serbia

Tourism in Serbian Spas has a long ongoing tradition. In order to analyze its improvement, it is mandatory to consider several elements of modern life and new changing trends in demand on touristy market, thoroughly regarding today's overall health of human population. In this very paper indicators of touristic development of Spa centers in Serbia have been analyzed (duration of the stay, index of functionality, the percentage of the occupation of the capacities, and intensity of the touristic turnover) regarding the period of 1981 to 2011. The aim of this paper is to compare changes (trends) and possibly to point to the causes of numerical changes in indicators of touristic development. The results discovered immense oscillations regarding the number of tourists, decrease of bed capacities as well as overall trend in tourists' stay in Spas. New experiences and new trends insist upon changing of traditional standpoint of spas as places of health tourism into destinations with developed other, specific forms of tourism.