Ekológia (Bratislava) Vol. 39, No. 4, p. 380–400, 2020 DOI:10.2478/eko-2020-0030 THE EVALUATION OF THE POTENTIAL OF DEVELOPING TOURISM IN KYSUCE REGION MÁRIA BARANČOKOVÁ, PETER BARANČOK Institute of Landscape Ecology, SAS, Štefánikova 3, P. O. Box 254, 814 99 Bratislava, Slovak Republic; e-mail: maria.
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[email protected] Abstract Barančoková M., Barančok P.: The evaluation of the potential of developing tourism in Kysuce region. Ekológia (Bratislava), Vol. 39, No. 4, p. 380–400, 2020. Tourism is an industry with a strong long-term potential of becoming one of the key industries in securing the country’s economic growth. Tourists are nowadays interested in not only getting to know the cultural-historical peculiarities, but also the way of life and cultural traditions of the inhabitants of the individual regions. Kysuce region is characterised by scattered settlement, which used to be a significant type of settlement in remote and inaccessible parts of the area in the past. Nowadays, however, the majority of the objects of the scattered settlement either serve as holiday chalets or are uninhabited.The aim of this paper is to evaluate the recreational potential of tourism in Kysuce region. Based on the established methodology, the individual villages were divided into five categories: areas with less suitable potential of tourism development (PTD), areas with suit- able PTD, areas with quality PTD, areas with PTD of high quality and areas with the most signifi- cant PTD. These categories have been established based on the point evaluation of the potential of input indicators – natural potential, cultural-historical potential, recreational infrastructure and environmental infrastructure.