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Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change
ISSN: 1476-6825 (Print) 1747-7654 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtcc20
Tourism, conflict and contested heritage in former
Yugoslavia
Patrick Naef & Josef Ploner
To cite this article: Patrick Naef & Josef Ploner (2016): Tourism, conflict and contested
heritage in former Yugoslavia, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, DOI:
10.1080/14766825.2016.1180802
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14766825.2016.1180802
Published online: 05 May 2016.
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INTRODUCTION
Tourism, conict and contested heritage in former Yugoslavia
Patrick Naef
a
and Josef Ploner
b
a
Department of Geography and Environment, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland;
b
Faculty of
Education, Department of Education Studies, University of Hull, Hull, UK
Although, historically, there have always been travellers crossing the Balkan Peninsula,
Todorova (1994) notes that early travellers were usually heading for important centres
such as Constantinople or Jerusalem, and considered South-East Europe as a peripheral
place where people were just passing through. The region is only really discovered in
the eighteenth century along with an increasing interest in the East. More organised
forms of tourism appear at the beginning of the nineteenth century, emerging rst
around railway lines and thermal therapy resources, and then expanding towards the
coastlines. A large part of these developments took place in Croatia and the Dalmatian
Riviera, but other regions also experienced the arrival of visitors and the rst organised
trip in Bosnia was proposed by Thomas Cook & Sons in 1898.
It is only after the Second World War, during the rule of Marshall Tito, that tourism really
ourished particularly in the period between the 1960s and the 1980s, when the Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) followed an alternative way of development as the
rest of the Eastern Bloc. A relative openness to the West allowed the arrival of European
tourists and led to forms of mass tourism in some parts of the region (Grandits &
Taylor, 2010). While communist regimes such as Bulgaria and Romania mainly hosted
eastern apparatchikson the Black Sea resorts, Yugoslavia and Greece focused on attract-
ing seaside tourists from Western Europe (Cattaruzza & Sintès, 2012).
Tourism and war in the former Yugoslavia
The wars of the Yugoslav succession during the 1990s had, without any doubt, a disastrous
impact on the regions tourism sector. Moreover, some of the most popular tourist desti-
nations were directly targeted; the shelling of Dubrovnik, a UNESCO world heritage site on
the south coast of Croatia, in 1991 is certainly a paradigmatic example. BosniaHerzego-
vina, Croatia, Kosovo and many other parts of former Yugoslavia were heavily impacted
by different armed conicts and saw tourist numbers plummeting especially during
19921995. While BosniaHerzegovina was completely ravaged and saw its tourism
brought to a complete halt, some regions of Croatia were spared and tourism did not
vanish entirely. Since the end of the wars, the revival of tourism has unfolded in contrast-
ing and asynchronous ways. Countries such as Croatia and Slovenia quickly regained the
number of tourists they had before the conicts, but BosniaHerzegovina attained its pre-
war tourism market only a few years ago (a market far smaller than its Croatian neighbour).
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Patrick Naef patrick.naef@unige.ch
JOURNAL OF TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE, 2016
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Nowadays, Croatia, and above all its coastline, certainly represents the epicentre of
tourism in the former Yugoslavia and some consider seaside tourism as hegemonicin
the region (Pinteau, 2011). Other former republics of Yugoslavia are also proting from
tourism. For example, Montenegro promotes its coastline to eastern European tourists
mainly Serbians and Russians and to a lesser extent to the West. Natural attractions rep-
resent the main assets of the non-coastal countries, while the cultural heritage of this
region, often described as a crossroads between East and West(Bracewell & Drace-
Francis, 2009), constitutes another important touristic resource. In this context, Serbia,
Kosovo and BosniaHerzegovina promote their religious heritage extensively; their numer-
ous mosques and Roman Catholic or Orthodox churches, some of them designated as
world heritage sites by UNESCO, constitute important landmarks on the tourism map.
Paradoxically, the wars of the 1990s also contributed to the cultural heritage production
in the former Yugoslavia, leading to the touristication of the war memory a phenom-
enon sometimes also referred to as war tourism’–through the construction of war mem-
orials and museums, along with the organisation of war tours(Naef, 2014). This trend,
which draws on both domestic and international tourism markets, is especially present
in heavily war-torn places like Sarajevo, the capital of BosniaHerzegovina, and Slavonia,
a region in Eastern Croatia.
In Sarajevo, war is now part of the tourism offer, and besides several museums on the
topic, some local tour operators offer tailored tours focusing on the remains of the last war.
Elsewhere, the Memorial of Srebrenica-Potočari receives more than 100,000 annual visi-
tors, mourners as well as tourists each year, making it one of the most visited sites of
BosniaHerzegovina today (Naef, 2014). In both contexts, tourism participates in
memory conicts, in a country ruled by three different communities (Bosnians, Croats
and Serbs) previously opposed (and sometimes allied) in warfare.
The Croatian region of Slavonia, and especially the town of Vukovar, often heralded as a
symbol of both national martyrdom and independence, also experience a form of mem-
orial tourism, in which Croats from all over the country come to pay their respects to this
martyred town and region (Naef, 2016). From a tourism and destination planning perspec-
tive, the interpretation of the conict is unilateral. Memorial politics, predominantly in the
hands of Croatian war veterans, serve as a base for the diffusion of a hegemonic discourse
on the past war. Furthermore, the symbol of independence associated with Vukovar is
often used in nationalistic narratives, in politics and the media, as well as in museums
and tourism. Although Vukovar is the focus of tourism associated with war heritage, Croa-
tian tourism authorities have been very active in distancing the rest of the country from its
war-torn image. Rivera (2008) speaks about an omissionof war, a process that she qua-
lies as covering. Croatian tourism politics seeks to dissociate the country from its war
heritage, but also tries to promote Croatia as European, emphasising Roman or Austro-
Hungarian historical elements, instead of Byzantine, socialist or Slavic culture (Rivera,
2008).
In their touristscapes and memorialscapes (Carr, 2012), where competing memories are
at stake, these new countries, and places within them, make different uses of the past.
Exploring the management of tourism is thus essential to the comprehension of memorial
issues in the former Yugoslavia. Besides, considering the importance of history (and of its
instrumentalisation) in the region, an analysis of the impact of memory on tourism seems
even more necessary. Since the 1980s, tourism has been identied as a potential
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instrument of peace by international bodies such as UNESCO, UNWTO or the European
Commission. However, as it can be observed in parts of ex-Yugoslavia, tourism can also
contribute to increasing memorial tensions.
Contested memories and dissonant heritage in tourism
The mutual and arguably complex relationships between tourism, memory and heritages
of war and conict have been widely explored in tourism studies and generated a wealth
of international case studies. These include tourisms associated with the American Civil
War (Chronis, 2012), the First and Second World Wars (Cooper, 2006; Scates, 2006;
Winter, 2012), Vietnam (Henderson, 2000), Cambodia (Sion, 2011), Rwanda (Friedrich &
Johnston, 2013), Sri Lanka (Hyndman & Amarasingam, 2014), Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Causevic & Lynch, 2011; Naef, 2014), the Middle East (Milstein, 2013), as well as tours to
more recent sites of terrorism (Sather-Wagstaff, 2011). Likewise, authors have developed
a wide range of concepts and heuristic labelsto make sense of tourism practices and rep-
resentations within potentially contested moral and memorial terrain, such as darkor
thanatourism(Foley & Lennon, 1996; Seaton, 1999; Stone, 2006), battleeld tourism
(Dunkley, Morgan, & Westwood, 2011; Ryan, 2007), (post-)waror post-conict tourism,
atrocity heritage(Ashworth, 2004; Fyall, Prideaux, & Timothy, 2006), or alternatively,
Phoenix tourism(Causevic & Lynch, 2011), reconciliation tourism(Higgins-Desbiolles,
2003) as well as peace tourism(Moufakkir & Kelly, 2010). The variety of concepts currently
in use seems to point towards a certain (moral?) dilemma within tourism studies, which
suggests a threefold pattern in the interpretation of sites of war and terror. Firstly, these
sites are conceptualised as marketable destinations capitalising on touristspeculiar and
sometimes voyeuristic fascination with the darkand uncanny dimensions of the
human condition. Secondly, they are seen as material and emotional sites of personal
and collective remembrance (e.g. ancestral/battleeld tourism). And nally, they are
approached as arenas in which lasting hostilities and traumas can be overcome and nor-
malisedwith the help of tourism (e.g. tourism for peace, regenerative tourism, etc.).
In an inuential study, Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996) highlighted the signicance of
site management and interpretation in relation to what they termed dissonant heritage.
Such heritage is appropriated by different and conicting groups of stakeholders, including
victims or descendants of victims, perpetrators and their descendants, bystanders as well as
other groups including tourists, refugees and displaced persons, international NGOs or heri-
tage organisations. Clearly, tourism plays an important part in the interpretation and man-
agement of such dissonant heritage and scholars have repeatedly emphasised the
ideological inuence of tourism in the brokerage of memory and its power to utilise narra-
tives that direct audiences towards certain attitudes and moral judgements (Bendix, 2002;
Ploner, 2012). For the region comprising former Yugoslavia, this may relate to well-
rehearsed grand narratives mapping out a distinct orientalist Balkan identity (i.e. Balkanism,
see Todorova, 1997;orBalkan atavism, see Herzfeld, 2005), as well as more punctuated
recent (hi)stories about war, death and survival (see Naef and Aussems, this issue). For
example, DragićevićŠešićand RogačMijatović(2014) describe how tourism and contem-
porary forms of heritage interpretation reinforce long-established narratives and symbolic
geographies of the Balkan region within Europe through politically charged metaphors
such as multicultural mosaic,bridge,border,crossroads,powder kegor Europes
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Other. At a different and more local level, Causevic and Lynch (2011) have demonstrated
how individuals such as tour guides in Sarajevo and Mostar negotiate dissonant memories
by escaping everyday politicking and by engaging in an empathic personal narrative cath-
arsis. Such catharsis emerges from the interaction between tour guide, site and tourist and
seeks to present a message of peace going beyond the dominant political discourse and the
banalismoften associated with heritage interpretation in tourism.
Between these local and the greater regional Balkannarratives, the renegotiation and
reinvention of collective memory and heritage through tourism remains particularly proble-
matic at national levels. Following the wars of the Yugoslav succession and the emergence of
six independent states on former Yugoslav territory in the 1990s, tourism has not only been
identied as a tool for post-war economic recovery, but has also been instrumental in the
politically motivated reinvention of tradition, the annulment of recent history, and attempts
to reorganise national collective memory and structures of feeling. In this context, tourism
has been harnessed as a strategic tool within wider national politics of collective amnesia
rather than an agent of memory and reconciliation. Considering research evidence to
date, this has been particularly the case in Croatia, which has arguably proted most from
international tourism since the late 1990s, but continues to concealand remove any material
and narrative traces reminiscent of the recent war (Fanny, 2016; Rivera, 2008).
The narrative power of tourism in inventing, adapting and obliterating dissonant
national historiographies is well recorded in the literature (Pitchford, 2008; Ploner, 2012)
and seems particularly momentous in post-war scenarios where myths and nostalgic refer-
ences to more remote, and hence less problematic pasts are frequently reinvigorated
(Boym, 2001). However, as Pavlicic (2016) shows, medieval sites such as Serbian churches
and monasteries in Kosovo are not spared from ongoing ideological battles over heritage
interpretation and ownership claims which are inextricably linked to more recent and lived
memories of conict. While Lennon and Foleys(2000) claim that more recent events are
generally darkerthan those with a longer history may be valid, one has also to acknowl-
edge the symbolic potential of historically remote sites and events in refuelling ongoing
political, religious or ethnic tensions.
Deconstructing such ideological and conicting symbolisms imbued in monuments and
heritage sites is a common theme within critical heritage and tourism studies and, to some
extent, features in this special issue. However, as Boym (2011) argues with reference to Walter
Benjamin, memory cannot be reduced to the symbolic realm alone, but is more akin to alle-
goricalways of interpreting, thinking and feeling. Writing about ruins more often seen as
allegories of romantic nostalgia rather than post-war memorialscapes Boym makes strong
claims for a memory in appreciation of ruins (ruinophilia) which is less retrospective and
restorative of imaginary pasts, but offers prospective views towards () possible futures
that never came to be(Boym, 2011, no pagination). Following this reading, the papers pre-
sented in this special issue do not only look backward but also point in the direction of
utopian and nostalgic futuresby highlighting the potential for reconciliation and peace.
Authorscontributions
Much has been written in the last 20 years about the atrocious wars in the former Yugo-
slavia. Tourism, however, remains a largely understudied eld, particularly in those Yugo-
slav succession states which have less proted from international tourist arrivals than
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others. Furthermore, a paternalist and somewhat condescending attitude toward the
region, with the voice of international experts and scholars tending to silence the local dis-
courses, is often criticised (Todorova, 1997; Tumarkin, 2005). This edition of the Journal of
Tourism and Cultural Change aims to address some of these shortcomings. It is purpose-
fully presented as a young scholarsissue since the majority of contributors are young/
early-career researchers who emanate from the region and, at best, have vague childhood
memories of the events that took place during the early 1990s. The criticality, reexivity,
and often bold argumentation brought forward by these emerging post-warscholars,
add fresh perspectives to the study of tourism in post-conict settings and equally empha-
sises the signicance of tourism as a key agent for social and cultural change. The authors
featured in this collection also draw on a wealth of existing regional and other non-Anglo-
phone scholarship which, so far, has been widely ignored in the mainstream literature and
adds more nuanced perspectives to this eld of study.
If tourism constitutes the central theme of these articles, all the scholars featured here
explore elds going beyond the scope of tourism alone such as art, politics, NGOs, reli-
gious heritage, to mention only a few. Likewise, tourism sectors and practices are set in
different political and cultural contexts, and their study can reveal tensions, struggles
and potentialities expanding far beyond this industry alone. An interdisciplinary perspec-
tive therefore guides this collection of articles contributed by scholars from disciplines as
diverse as political sciences, anthropology, art history, museology and geography, and
analysing case studies that encompass Kosovo, BosniaHerzegovina and Croatia.
Although touristic forms of heritage promotion and interpretation in former Yugoslavia
often result in complex amalgamations of historically detached sites and events, the
papers in this issue follow a historicalor chronological order.
In the rst paper, Jelena Pavlicic, a museologist from Pristina, explores how medieval reli-
gious Serbian heritage sites in Kosovo have been gradually rendered inaccessible and neg-
lected by KosovanAlbanian elites who use heritage tourism as a tool for building a new
national identity. Reecting on both Central European and Anglophone scholarly traditions
in museology and heritage interpretation, and drawing on a range of empirical materials (i.
e. ethnographic observations, tourist brochures and website narratives), the author diag-
noses a latent physical and semantic iconoclasmwhich, paradoxically, emphasises the
monumentsregional and international symbolic value (e.g. as endangered UNESCO
world heritage sites). Calling for an active policy of memory, Pavlicic poses important ques-
tions about the ambivalent role of tourism either as an arena for integrative and sustain-
able heritage management, or conversely, as an instrument assisting modern iconoclasm.
In the second paper, University of Belgrade-based art historian Vladana Putnik revisits
the Second World War Monuments erected in Yugoslavia between the 1960s and the
1980s. Commemorating partisan and civilian martyrdom, and embodying an expressive
modernist aesthetic, these often gargantuan structures were popular sites for political pil-
grimages and educational tourism celebrating national unity and forging collective history
within Titos socialist state. Considered as reminders of an unwanted past after the
breakup of Yugoslavia, many of these monuments were neglected, forgotten and left to
decay, but more recently, have also drawn a new clientele of tourists in the wake of Yugo-
nostalgiaand through the bohemian appreciation by international artists, lm-makers
and photographers. In this study, Putnik guides the reader through a tumultuous
history of heritage (re-)interpretation, and poses the interesting question whether the
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monumentsartistic value can eventually outstrip ideological narrative and political calcu-
lus. In her text, tourism is identied as a powerful means for education and revitalisation
which could lead to more objectiveand dialogic forms of heritage interpretation.
The following article by Guest-Editor Patrick Naef explores the notion of the martyred
city, a recurrent memorial designation associated with war-torn cities such as Berlin, Guer-
nica, Hiroshima, Homs and many more. However, rather than dwelling on popular and
quasi-religious media discourses of martyrdom, Naef proposes martyred cityas a concep-
tual frame through which to approach the ambivalent ways in which different memorial
entrepreneursnegotiate the blurred boundaries between martyrdom and victimhood in
the cities of Vukovar (Croatia) and Sarajevo (BosniaHerzegovina). By inspecting the
dynamic post-war geographies of these two cities, Naef maps out contested memorials-
capesof martyrdom/victimhood which are marked and animated by everyday (touristic)
practices and events such as guided tours, museum exhibitions, lm festivals, posters and
grafti. However, while the martyred citymay be tributary to the everyday (and often
creative) sociocultural organisation of place, the progressing touristicationand heritagi-
sationcan also mean freezinga place around a particular historical event.
Emilie Aussemspaper Cross-community tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina a path to
reconciliation? looks at the challenging work of two NGOs, which organise tours to civil
and military memorials for former soldiers and other members of the Serbian, Croat and
Muslim communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Identifying four dimensions of reconcilia-
tion-through-tourism (economic, educational, therapeutic and leisure), Aussems presents
some powerful narratives of tour participants which range between grief, denial, guilt,
empathy and catharsis. While these cross-community tours represent an overall positive
bottom-up approach to post-war reconciliation processes, the author also refers to
wider contextual and societal issues impacting on the success or failure of these tours
such as the lack of trust, the varying symbolic connotations of memorial sites, as well as
the risk of volunteers and tour participants being exposed to pressures coming from poli-
ticians and members within their own (ethnic, national or religious) communities.
Important questions about the management of dissonant heritage sites are also
addressed in the paper by Kamber, Karafotias and Tsitoura: Dark Heritage Tourism and
the Sarajevo Siege. Drawing on the concept of dark heritage, and presenting ndings
from a survey conducted with tourists visiting the so-called Tunnel of Hope (Sarajevos life-
line during the siege years 19921995), the authors identify a range of motivations of tour-
ists visiting the sites as well as experiences gained during their visits. Among other
interesting insights, the ndings suggest that the Tunnel of Hopetour particularly
appeals to young and well-educated Western tourists who seek to establish authentic
and tangibleconnections to the everyday struggles for survival in the besieged city,
but are also driven by curiosity and educational motivations. The authors conclude that,
while the Tunnel of Hoperepresents an overall well-managed alternativeheritage
site, more far-reaching national tourism and heritage policies contributing to social
renewal and reconciliation still remain widely underdeveloped.
The nal paper in this special issue is presented by Fanny Arnauld and is based on her
Ph.D. research on tourism and memory formation in Croatia. Critically analysing current
tourism marketing strategies in Croatia, Arnauld shows how national elites and tourism
policy-makers continue to hide away contested war memories under a glossy surface of
unspoilt natural beauty, historically remote heritage, as well as an idyllic imagery of sun,
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sand and sea. While Croatias active role in the war of the 1990s is ideologically redressed
in narratives of victimhood and defence against aggressive neighbours, current tourism
representations follow (and support) a wider strategy of de-Balkanisationin that the
country is internationally refashioned as a novelholiday option on par with, yet distinct
from, well-established Mediterranean destinations. Challenging this national reinvention
of tradition through tourism, Arnauld calls for more active and engaged national policies
of memory which reache out to both local and international publics.
Although this special issue addresses a broad range of critical issues gravitating around
the interpretation of heritage and memory in post-Yugoslavian tourism contexts, there is
much scope for future research in this eld. For example, scholars could look more closely
at national case studies in tourism development, heritage discourses and policies which,
for various reasons, have received fairly modest attention in academic writing, such as
Serbia, Montenegro and to some extent, Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, scholars inter-
ested in reconciliatory and pro-peace forms of tourism, could engage more vigorously in
longitudinal projects exploring the success or failure of different initiatives at local,
regional, national and international levels.
The special issue presented here is strong proof that, some twenty years after the end of
the wars in Yugoslavia, an emerging generation of interdisciplinary international research-
ers continue to challenge one-dimensional heritage formations and interpretations, and
try to make sense of unwanted, repressed or otherwise contested pasts. While tourism
is but one element in these complex processes of meaning-making, it is also a valuable
conceptual and empirical frame through which to gain insight into the multifaceted prac-
tices and politics of memory and forgetting.
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... Unlike natural disasters, conflicts tend to impact the tourism industry more profoundly and for longer durations [7]. Consequently, much of the post-conflict tourism literature focuses on the reconstruction of destination image and branding as key elements of recovery [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Given that tourism is a beneficiary of peace [20], post-conflict peace often triggers or stimulates the development of tourism [3,7]. ...
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This study examines community resilience in post-conflict tourism destinations of the Global South, where externally initiated and controlled tourism development often prevails. Using a conceptual research approach grounded in a comprehensive literature review, the paper identifies critical conditions for resilience-building in these fragile contexts. It demonstrates that post-conflict tourism development typically unfolds in three stages: an initial phase of rapid growth driven by external stakeholders, followed by community awakening to tourism’s impacts, and culminating in community-led efforts to regain control. The study argues that even when initial tourism development exceeds local adaptive capacities, it can initiate a gradual process of resilience-building through proactive community action and supportive policies. The transformative potential of amenity migrants is emphasized, as they can shift from being stressors to becoming agents of change, fostering resilience, provided they are successfully integrated into local communities. The paper also advocates for longitudinal research to better understand the dynamics of amenity migrants’ assimilation and their role in resilience-building, particularly in the Global South, where empirical evidence remains limited. The findings provide valuable insights for designing strategies to achieve sustainable and inclusive tourism development in post-conflict and other vulnerable destinations, offering a pathway to empower local communities and foster long-term resilience.
... However, the region gained prominence in the 19th century, with the advent of railway travel and the burgeoning interest in thermal therapy. Croatia's Dalmatian Riviera and Bosnia's early organized tours by Thomas Cook & Sons exemplify the Balkans' gradual integration into global tourism (Naef & Ploner, 2016). ...
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This paper explores the evolution of the Balkans' historically negative image, rooted in political instability, conflict, and cultural narratives, into one that is increasingly shaped by tourism. Long perceived as a region of division and insecurity, the Balkans are undergoing a transformation fueled by the growing recognition of their cultural, historical, and natural assets. International tourism has been instrumental in altering external perceptions by promoting the region’s distinct attractions and fostering a departure from a collective "Balkan" identity towards the development of unique national tourism brands. These efforts reflect a strategic reimagining of the region, positioning it as an appealing destination within global tourism networks. By analyzing the interplay between historical stigma and contemporary branding strategies, this study highlights tourism's role as a catalyst for reshaping the Balkans' image, contributing to its economic growth and global integration. This shift illustrates how tourism can redefine regional identities and challenge outdated stereotypes, presenting the Balkans as a diverse and welcoming destination. Keywords: Balkans, image, political narratives, stereotypes, international tourism
... 2) не всі території, які хочуть розвивати туризм, згідні з тим, щоб їх асоціювали з місцем болю та страждань. Наприклад, в Хорватії національна еліта та політики в галузі туризму прийняли рішення ховати суперечливі спогади про війну під блискучою поверхнею незайманої природної краси, історично віддаленої спадщини, а також ідилічних образів сонця, піску та моря [3]; ...
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The relevance of the study is due to the prospects for the development of military tourism in Ukraine at the present time and after the end of active hostilities. The aim and objectives of the study are to analyze the essence and structure of this type of tourism, to identify the main challenges faced by this segment of the tourism market and the possibilities of their solution. The article applies systemic-structural and dialectical approaches to the consideration of the problems using the methods of analysis, synthesis, systematization, and modeling. It has been established that military tourism is a multi-segment phenomenon that unites all travels whose main motive is interest in military events and/or military equipment. These trips can be real and virtual, and can be made both to safe areas and to the zone of active hostilities. This type of tourism, like its subtypes, does not have a single name. The existing terminological uncertainty prevents the formation of a clear proposal. The controversial nature of the issue of whether travel to the area of active hostilities belongs to military tourism hinders the definition of the essence of this phenomenon and the development of regulatory support. This, in turn, does not allow to organize legal tourism activities in this segment and to guarantee travel safety; it affects the identification of tourist resources and territories that can be considered as tourist destinations. Obviously, this complicates the training of personnel for this segment of the tourism market and does not allow for the quality organization of work with local communities. A separate issue is the problem of interpreting the military heritage of the Soviet and imperial periods, since the entire territory of Ukraine was a zone of active hostilities of the First and Second World Wars, and this cannot be ignored when organizing military tours. It is found out that the existing problems should be solved at several levels: state (regulatory and legal support), sphere of tourism (development of standards, protocols, research on the needs of the target audience, ways to involve representatives of territorial communities and military retirees, etc.), higher education institutions (updating educational and professional programs), travel agencies (forming offers), by combining the efforts of state authorities, representatives of local self-government bodies, research and teaching staff, and business.
... For 'unwelcome pasts' and heritage in tense contexts, the possibilities of recreation are opened up by the reconstruction of tourism narratives. In the interpretation and management of this dissonant heritage, tourism involves memory conflicts, guiding viewers' understanding of heritage history through narratives (Naef and Ploner 2016). Tourists are no longer mere passive observers but can also take a proactive position; the use of 'exotic' elements as marketing objects for commercial activities allows tourists to participate in the 'dissonant' heritage narrative, helping them to form their own interpretation (Banaszkiewicz 2016). ...
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Concessions—defined as the urban elements built by Western powers while ‘occupying’ various parts of the Chinese territory—have recently been granted heritage status by the Chinese national and local authorities. However, in many respects, they are ‘dissonant’ heritage sites since they are the result of the several-decade-long ‘colonial’ presence in Tianjin of nine foreign powers. The aim of this study is to understand how former international concessions are featured in museums and interpretation centres in present-day Tianjin. Using an approach that draws on dissonant heritage; literature on postcolonial museums, nostalgia and forgetting mechanisms; and the relationship between museographic narratives and patriotism, this article analyses a corpus of eight museums located in three former international concessions (Marshal Zhang’s Mansion, the Former Residence of Ma Zhanshan, the Museum of Modern History of Tianjin, the Five Avenues History Museum, the Museum of the Department Store Quan Ye Chang, Zhang House, the Astor Hotel Museum, the Tianjin Planning Exhibition Hall and the Tianjin Museum). The analysis is based on a common observation grid and semidirect interviews conducted with museum staff. The article captures and examines the main narratives from three perspectives: 1) revisiting the concession period as evidence of the beginning of modernity in China, which was a time in which celebrity life stories and the emergence of modern urban elements were praised; 2) considering the concessions as a dreamlike past of ‘others’ and ‘elsewheres’ belonging to a ‘foreign land’ and a context far removed from contemporary life in China, which favours the thematisation and leisure of Western architecture; and 3) selecting and targeting narratives focused on the heroes of the Republic of China (1912–1949) and the People’s Republic of China. This paper highlights and further develops how former Western concessions are imbued with a sense of both nostalgia and patriotism and sets out to gain a deeper understanding of the tension between these two attitudes.
... The research underscores the significance of this extension for further tourism development of the country. Moreover, it empowers tourism developers and planners to better Naef and Ploner (2016) and Ploner (2012), this research underscores the power of tourism to enhance awareness and understanding of Ottoman heritage by integrating dispersed cultural sites across the Balkans into the intricate and ambitious Sultan Trail route. The study also sheds light on several shortcomings in national tourism governance that could adversely affect inclusion in the main route, such as limited budget allocations for tourism, insufficient attention to collectively diversifying tourism products across the Balkans, and the absence of plans for monitoring and evaluation, as previously discussed by Porfido (2020). ...
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Cultural tourism routes are typically designed for specific groups of travelers, offering opportunities to explore remnants of the past, both tangible and intangible. North Macedonia boasts a diverse array of cultural relics dating back to the Ottoman period, including bazaars, bridges, hammams, bedestens, karavansarays, clock towers, mosques, and various other types of buildings. This research employs an experiential approach to investigate the feasibility of integrating selected Ottoman heritage sites in North Macedonia (specifically Ohrid, Resen, and Bitola) into the existing Sultans Trail cultural route, which stretches from Vienna to Istanbul. Interviews with local tour guides, who are highly experienced in packaged tours tailored to Ottoman heritage, support the potential for extending the main cultural route. A concise summary of the proposed itinerary, informed by experiential judgment, leads to qualitative findings. Utilizing the Saint Gallen Destination Management model, the study maps out strategic visitor flows, facilitating the integration of North Macedonia into the broader Sultan Trail route spanning 2,500 km. Finally, the research underscores the significance of this extension for further tourism development of the country.
... After the separation from the former Yugoslavia, new countries were formed in the Western Balkans in the 1990s: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro. The wars of the Yugoslav succession during the '90s had a very bad impact on the region's tourism sector (Naef & Ploner, 2016). Some of the most popular tourist destinations were shelled and others devastated. ...
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarize and analyze research on the development of rural tourism in the last 30 years in the countries of former Yugoslavia and the most common topics in each country. Design/Methodology – To create a systematic literature review, the authors analyzed articles from the national library information systems and Google Scholar. Based on a keyword search and content analysis, 647 research articles were identified as relevant to this study. To interpret secondary data sources, general scientific methods such as deduction and desk analysis were used. Approach – The paper aims to provide insight into recent trends in rural tourism literature regarding former Yugoslavia’s countries. A detailed review of relevant literature identified the predominant interests of authors and dominant research niches. This study focused on the scholarly perspective to study and analyze the rural tourism literature and its link with sustainable development and special forms of rural tourism. Findings – Countries that were once a part of Yugoslavia have different levels of rural tourism development and the authors research rural tourism from different perspectives. There are many authors that study rural tourism and an emerging number of those that include sustainable development of rural tourism as key. Originality of the research – This research contributes to the theory by presenting relevant literature on rural tourism in the area of former Yugoslavia. Literature reviews on rural tourism are many, but there are no papers focusing only on former Yugoslav republics or collecting data from the national library information systems and Google Scholar.
... Several scholars have criticised the Afrikaners' perspective of this battle, saying that God could not possibly have given them the victory over the AmaZulu simply because they had made a vow with Him to build a church and religiously remember the day as a public holiday if they were to be victorious. Understanding battlefields and struggle/liberation heritage tourism requires further investigation (Baines, 2007;Bialostocka, 2013;Bialostocka, 2014;Naef & Ploner, 2016;Pentz & Albert, 2023). The Pacific War Battlefields, for example, have caused unease and shame among many Japanese people due to their ancestors' involvement in the war (Cooper, 2006). ...
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Battlefield tourism is a well-established niche in cultural and heritage tourism the world over. This paper explores the contested nature of a specific battlefield in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where two separate museums exist to memorialise the same event, but from two perspectives. The Battle of Blood River (December 16th, 1838) remains a contested event in history books, portrayed from Afrikaner and AmaZulu points of view at the Blood River Heritage Site and Ncome Museum, respectively. People interested in visiting battlefields are slowly dying out, and if South Africa wants to take advantage of growing Battlefield Tourism in the future for surviving generations of those involved in these battles, a new approach will be necessary to sustain and develop this niche of cultural and heritage tourism in the country. This paper uses netnography to analyse the internet footprint of this historical event through the museums’ websites. The paper argues that a more balanced and two-sided perspective should be given at both museums to grow and develop the interest in battlefield tourism across South Africa and encourage mutual visitorship to both museums on the same battlefield site.
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Bu çalışma, Bosna-Hersek’teki savaş turizmi ve karanlık turizmi alanlarını, özellikle Saraybosna’daki müzeleri ve 1992-1995 kuşatmasını, savaş turizmi perspektifinden inceleyen bir literatür derlemesidir. Bosna-Hersek, turizm sektöründe önemli gelişmeler kaydetmiş olmasına rağmen, karanlık turizm çerçevesinde ziyaret edilecek yerleri konu alan rehber kitaplarda nadiren yer almaktadır. Bu derlemede, karanlık turizmin ülkede hem gezi turları hem de anıt müze sergileri olarak iki biçimde temsil edildiği, bu bağlamda literatürde sunulan verilerle ortaya konulmaktadır. Çalışmada kullanılan yöntem, mevcut literatürün incelenmesi ve bu bağlamda ilgili verilerin değerlendirilmesine dayanmaktadır. Elde edilen bulgular, Bosna-Hersek’teki karanlık turizmin, ülkenin tarihindeki olaylara yönelik küresel farkındalık ve anlayışın artmasına önemli katkılar sağladığını göstermektedir. (This study is a literature review that examines the areas of war tourism and dark tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, specifically focusing on museums in Sarajevo and the 1992-1995 siege from the perspective of war tourism. Although Bosnia and Herzegovina has made significant progress in the tourism sector, it is rarely included in guidebooks on places to visit within the framework of dark tourism. This review demonstrates that dark tourism in the country is represented in two forms: sightseeing tours and memorial museum exhibitions, as evidenced by the data presented in the literature. The method used in the study is based on the review of existing literature and the evaluation of relevant data in this context. The findings indicate that dark tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina has made a significant contribution to increasing global awareness and understanding of the events in the country’s history.)
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Cultural heritage is an important part of the cultural identity of any nation. The care of cultural heritage includes the protection and preservation of the material heritage of the majority nation and the heritage of all other ethnic communities that have left their cultural traces in the area under consideration. The protection of cultural heritage reflects the maturity of a society. That’s why the approach to the protection of cultural monuments should not be selective, narrow and strictly national, but comprehensive, preserving the cultural values of earlier eras and peoples as a general civilisational asset. The research aims to reveal how today’s youth perceive the Ottoman heritage in Serbia, their emotional relationship with it, and whether they recognise the Ottoman heritage as a possible resource for tourism in Serbia. The results indicate that the student population perceives the positive aspects of the Ottoman era in this region, as reflected in the legacy of Oriental culture and the multi-ethnic and multicultural order, to a large extent. Architectural heritage, gastronomy and intangible heritage (language and literature, legends, music, dances, traditions) are largely recognised as representative of the Ottoman cultural heritage and foreign influences on national culture. Their potential for tourism has also been recognised. However, the possible obstacles in the development process of the cultural route are foreseen in strong nationalism and negative collective memory, which were identified as key barriers.
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During and after the war in Kosovo in 1999, Serbian medieval monuments were recognised as symbols and bearers of Serbian identity. This led to the fact that among the Albanian population in Kosovo, they were seen as an undesirable legacy – a reflection of centuries of the existence of Serbs in Kosovo. Although the historical value of these monuments, four of which are on the UNESCO World Heritage list of endangered sites, is not disputed, popular tourist publications open an unfounded debate and are used to alienate the historical identity of these places or to promote a distorted interpretation of them. Through popular media representations this paper will touch on the complexity of these monuments as dissonant heritage in the newly established state of Kosovo and its different uses and interpretations in the promotion of tourism.
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The present contribution aims to propose a definition of what is often referred to as a ‘martyred city’, a notion widely used in the media and the public sphere, but still largely understudied in academia. By looking at two cities in the former Yugoslavia – Sarajevo and Vukovar – this article presents the way in which a place can be associated with the notion of martyrdom through memorial sites and practices, such as war museums and tourism. The ‘martyred city’ is a way to memorialize past traumatic events, but also a means to achieve diverse agendas and objectives. It is finally stated that the distinction between ‘victims’ and ‘martyrs’ is often blurred, and a shift from the former to the latter can be observed.
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This book illustrates the tremendous outreach of tourism in search of extraordinary, spectacular and bizarre experiences. It covers tourism in out-of-the-ordinary environments (space tourism, Antarctic tourism, and adventure/heritage tourism in remote areas); dark tourism; other unconventional forms of tourism such as deep ecotourism and health tourism in salt mines; and other special-interest forms such as pro-poor tourism, senior tourism, and volunteer tourism. The book has 15 chapters and a subject index.
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Since 2005, tourism in Croatia is growing exponentially, making the country a major tourist destination in Europe. Yet the 1991–1995 war that bloodied the Croatian territory has endangered the tourism sector. On the one hand, the fighting caused the demolition of many infrastructures and the destruction of part of the local architectural heritage. On the other hand, the media coverage of the war and extreme violence of ethnic cleansing campaigns frightened international customers, who fled the destination. Therefore, actors of tourism promotion have worked, since the end of the war to overshadow the conflict by transforming the image of Croatia in the international arena, focusing on its belonging to the Mediterranean area and on the originality of the destination. This marketing strategy has been accompanied by an invisibiliza tion of the war, in places dedicated to tourism in order to promote an idyllic image of the destination. Nevertheless, this concealment is not symptomatic of the place of the memory of war in contemporary Croatian society. Instead, the memory is ubiquitous in the Croatian public space. It participates in the redefinition of the post-Yugoslav national identity and ethnic boundaries, it articulates with the memory of W orld W ar II, and represents a political lever that various political factions and civil society actors are competing for.
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In writings about travel, the Balkans appear most often as a place travelled to. Western accounts of the Balkans revel in the different and the exotic, the violent and the primitive − traits that serve (according to many commentators) as a foil to self-congratulatory definitions of the West as modern, progressive and rational. However, the Balkans have also long been travelled from. The region's writers have given accounts of their travels in the West and elsewhere, saying something in the process about themselves and their place in the world. The analyses presented here, ranging from those of 16th-century Greek humanists to 19th-century Romanian reformers to 20th-century writers, socialists and 'men-of-the-world', suggest that travellers from the region have also created their own identities through their encounters with Europe. Consequently, this book challenges assumptions of Western discursive hegemony, while at the same time exploring Balkan 'Occidentalisms'. © 2009 Wendy Bracewell and Alex Drace-Francis. All rights reserved.
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Tourism has the potential to contribute to world peace, and through appropriate management, to address current realities such as globalization, migration, conflicts, prejudices and poverty. By providing a range of international perspectives and case studies, this book discusses the interrelation between peace, conflict resolution and tourism, the role of industry and the role of the individual, and tourism as a catalyst for change and development. Exploring the ideas that there is more to peace than the absence of war and that there is more to tourism than economic interests, this book is the first of its kind and an essential resource for researchers, students and policymakers in tourism and related subjects.