Study on the Tourism Potentials in the Southwest Planning Region
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RESEARCH STUDY OF THE TOURIST POTENTITIALS OF SOUTHWESTERN PLAN REGION Open call No. 09/2013 Ohrid, November 2013 Expert team: Prof. Naume Marinoski, Ph. D. – General researcher Prof. Sasho Korunovski, Ph. D. – Main researcher Prof. Cvetko Andreeski, Ph. D. – Field researcher Prof. Katerina Angeleska Najdeska, Ph. D. – Field researcher Michael Risteski, M. Sc, - associate researcher Ohrid, November 2013 2 STUDY ON THE TOURISM POTENTIALS IN THE SOUTHWEST PLANNING REGION ABSTRACT Tourism in the Southwest Planning Region in the adopted document is identified as one of the leading industries. Given that in a sustained sense it can activate the potentials in a relatively favorable way and accelerate the overall development, it represents a basic interest for the municipalities belonging to the Region and the small local areas. The justified methodological approach allows for determining the potentials in volume, structure and dynamics, the appropriate use of the spatial position, the natural and cultural resources and the mutual relations that occur in this spatial entity. The social conditions represent the framework in which this sector can operate in an optimal way. Special values represent the communication links because their improving is a precondition for organizing the space for tourism purposes, improving the quality of receptive resources, creating tourism products and performing on the tourism market. The development opportunities, on the other hand, are the basis for forecastings, their classifying and adopting action plans. Through the determining the action plans it can be recognized that the achievement of the primary goal throughout the development should increase the share of the Gross domestic product of this sector in the Southwest Planning Region and the Republic of Macedonia. 3 INTRODUCTION The Southwest Planning Region in the Republic of Macedonia is one of the most attractive spatial entities. That is due to the attractive properties it has of natural and cultural character, the created infrastructural and super-structural conditions and primarily the positive development policy in terms of balanced tourism development and use of the resources in a selective sense. In the past there was a tendency to exploit the potentials that the region possesses. It meant that tourism was placed in the priority sectors, but because it is a complex and heterogeneous developmental opportunity they remain only as developmental perspectives. They refer to the tourist valorization of space, improving the communication and accessibility of tourists towards the tourism demand, the development of human potential and paradigmatic increase of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the field of tourism and hospitality in the total GDP of the Southwest Planning Region (SWPR) and in the GDP in the Republic of Macedonia. In this sense the goals should provide insights and in the approaches and improvements in order to reach results that will enable tourism to enhance its position within the economic and social development of the municipalities and the region as a whole, which will contribute to the balanced regional development of the Republic of Macedonia. The balanced development of tourism in the region includes Analyses that refer to the situations, possibilities and perspectives of the municipalities that are included in this planning spatial entity. This derives from the fact that tourism as a development accelerator does not represent only a benefit in the relations between the development of the other planning regions and the Republic of Macedonia as a whole but also within the region. That means that the inter-regional and the intra-regional relations in the tourism development are crucial for increasing the participation in the GDP in this sector. In this regard, it is important to access with using the development indicators which will be noted in the official documents of the municipalities, the region and the Republic of Macedonia and especially in determining the characteristics of the activity observed in terms of grades given by the stakeholders and experts as well as the scientific community if they have primary research character. In order to realize the research process, it is necessary to establish argumentative components in the action plan and the strategic documents of the above-mentioned goals. In this sense very important are the priorities, patterns of implementation, time frames and the establishment of vertical and horizontal coordination at all levels. In terms of acceptability of the research results that are included in the study, an important place jas the promotion and presentation of the key findings in this planning document with strategic importance for the tourism development. 4 The balanced development of the regions in the Republic of Macedonia is one of the top priorities of the Government, the local governments and the tourism industry as a whole. The benefits should have general scientific and technical importance. The document is based on a specially designed, theoretical-methodological approach, with a high degree of professional applicability. 5 I METHODOLOGY FOR PREPARING A STUDY FOR TOURISM POTENTIALS OF THE SOUTHWEST PLANNING REGION Given that within the tendering documentation it is necessary to prepare a methodology for the Study of tourism potentials of Southwest Planning Region we submit it as a separate document. During the preparation of the Study for tourism potentials of the Southwest Planning Region the starting point is the set of the long- and short-term goals. The study relies on the research of triple character: I. Review and critical analysis of the literature, planning documents, strategies and other documents adopted within the Southwest Planning Region, that treat the matter of tourism and hotel - catering potentials and resources in the Southwest Planning Region, the municipalities which it covers and other settlements. In this respect also, screening the adopted documents at the level of the Republic of Macedonia was used, so that we determined the place of the Southwest Planning Region within the Republic of Macedonia regarding the mentioned subject of study. II. The study is based on secondary research while relevant indicators that are published by the State Statistical Office of the Republic of Macedonia in the field of this activity were used, as well as the indicators contained in the bulletins, reports and other publications on national, regional and local level. III. Given the fact that it was not possible to obtain relevance only through the secondary research, we considered it necessary to carry out also primary research. The primary research had primarily field character. In that sense we used two research methods including: interviews and surveys. The interview was systematized and implemented by the project team group led by the project developer, general researcher and the researchers involved in the research activities as supporters in the preparation of the study, which in fact have extensive experience in this field. Within the primary research 2 survey questionnaires and 1 standardized interview were prepared. They were also prepared by the expert team. The group carried out training activities for interviewers and prepared the material for the questionnaires. The survey was conducted on a sample of 0.05% in order to ensure the relevance of the data. The sample is standardized according to eminent conducted surveys. 6 In accordance with the tendering documents we established a long-term goal as well as specific objectives of the project. Based on the determined approaches the expert team outlined the activities related to these objectives Research techniques For the purposes of this project generally several research techniques were used such as: - Survey and interview (two different survey questionnaires and a standardized interview were prepared which were filled by three groups of subjects, including: the sectors of tourism and the responsible institutions of the Southwest Planning Region, tourists and locals). Based on the collected data from the surveys a statistical analysis was conducted using several statistical techniques such as: descriptive analysis, analysis of variance and inter-sectional analysis. - SWOT – analysis. For the study we used this technique in order to study the aspects that did not have, or the statistical data were not enough as well the surveyed groups of respondents could not provide relevant data. - Analysis of statistical data. Used were multiple data sources such as the State Statistical Office, the local governments of the municipalities within the Southwest Planning Region, as well as other relevant sources of statistics. Based on the statistics we performed statistical analysis using various techniques such as descriptive analysis, analysis of variance, time series analysis, analysis of indexes and predicting future values. LONG-TERM GOAL - Increasing the participation of tourism and hotel - catering sector of the Southwest Planning Region in the Gross Domestic product (GDP) of the Republic of Macedonia. 1. Within this goal we predicted two direct actions. The first concerned the analysis of the tourism and hotel - catering sector and GDP of the Republic of Macedonia. This means that it was necessary to collect data and to conduct an analysis of the participation of the tourism and hotel - catering sector in the GDP of Republic of Macedonia, its share in the GDP of the Southwest Planning Region, the share of this