Planning Cultural Tourism in Serbia: Golubac Town in the Danube Iron Gates Region

Abstract

The sector of cultural tourism has accelerated last decades. The main advantage in this type of tourism is that it can revive and regenerate the formerly underdeveloped locations with significant cultural and natural heritage, tradition and localness. However, these locations are often with limited accessibility and services, i.e., they lack proper infrastructure to be embrace cultural tourism in its full potential. Serbia is among less developed European countries in cultural tourism, but it has made a huge progress last decade. The fastest developing destinations of cultural tourism in the country are those one located on European tourist routes, such the Danube River. The most scenic part of the river is the Iron Gates or Đerdap, the longest gorge of the Danube divided between Serbia and Romania. Golubac is Serbian Town situated at the western entrance of the gorge, with the magnificent same-name fortress, recently refurbished. This was an important step forward in tourism sector, which has consequently reversed the previously negative socio-economic trajectory in Golubac due to the town borderland position and underdeveloped transportation infrastructure. Such isolation preserved local tradition and heritage sites, which have become new magnets for local and international tourists on the Danube Route. This recent development has brought many new project proposals. The purpose of this research is to analyse the key planning documents that include Golubac Town and how they consider new strategic projects in territorial manner. Three most representative planning documents are selected and analysed regarding to planned projects in (cultural) tourism infrastructure in the form of a multicase study. Results from this case-study analysis are compared with the position and view of local experts, finalised as final inputs for the future development of the Golubac.