sustainability Article Can Proper Funding Enhance Sustainable Tourism in Rural Settings? Evidence from a Developing Country Gordana Radovi´c 1, Marko D. Petrovi´c 2,3 , Dunja Demirovi´cBajrami 2,3,*, Milan Radovanovi´c 2,3 and Natalia Vukovi´c 4 1 “Dnevnik-Poljoprivrednik”, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia;
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[email protected] (M.D.P.);
[email protected] (M.R.) 3 Institute of Sports, Tourism and Service, South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk 454080, Russia 4 Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, School of World Economy, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow 119017, Russia;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 13 August 2020; Accepted: 15 September 2020; Published: 21 September 2020 Abstract: Rural tourism is often considered to be a factor in the development tendencies of rural space, a factor in the development of agriculture, as well as a factor in reducing rural depopulation. The primary aim of the research was to look at the problems in financing sustainable rural tourism in the case study of Serbia. The secondary one was to analyze the factors that may influence the self-financing capacity of rural tourism service providers. The findings confirmed the main hypothesis that financial resources are a significant limitation of the development of sustainable rural tourism. It was found that there is a high correlation between the amount of income generated and the structure of the workforce. The results verified that rural tourism entities were not making sufficient investments due to lack of financial resources, i.e., adequate financing modalities.