Rural Tourism Sustainable Development and Rural Development of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Rural Tourism Sustainable Development and Rural Development of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Summary/Abstract: Bosnia and Herzegovina has great natural potentials for development of rural tourism but it is necessary to research about others potentials. Existing network of resources are very low and it is necessary to make a survey in order to give possibilities to domestic and foreigner tourists, to learn more about Bosnia and Herzegovina, to make quality plans of their journey and to get quality information’s about tourist attractions. Tourism in rural areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) helps to respond the challenges of open trade, by diversifying the rural economy. On this basis is possible, with use of definition of agro tourism, and basic laws of its development, to develop agro tourism in the country. Bosnia and Herzegovina have majority of rural population and many rural destinations. Rural areas and less built-up area with higher preservation-degree of the environment, where acceptable farm development exist, represent the main valorization-base for making agro tourism product. Rural economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) is increasingly diversified but agriculture is still an important component of the rural livelihood portfolio. The paper aims at providing an overview of rural tourism and rural development (ARD) in BH. The paper focuses on ARD governance especially policies, strategies and plans; stakeholders; approaches and paradigms; and projects. It identifies the main State- and Entity-level institutions dealing with ARD policies in BH (law, strategic plan and agro tourism and rural development) and analyzes relationships and linkages between them. A comparison has been made between ARD programmed in BH with European Union’s RD policy. A SWOT analysis of the Strategic Plan for Rural Development 2009-2015 in the Republic of Srpska has been performed. All in all, effective, efficient and sustainable ARD policies in BH should be place-based, multi-sectorial, synergistic and designed and implemented through a good coordination between multilevel governance public and civil institutions (international, national, and sub-national: entities, cantons, regions, municipalities). Creation of new potential cores for evaluation in agro tourism encourages the tourism revenue and economic benefit at the healthy and almost completely natural way in the essence of concept of sustainable development.

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