| Abstract [eng] |
The main focus of these master’s thesis is youth participation in sustainable tourism. UNWTO and United Nations highlights that youth is the main power which can promote sustainable tourism. Majority of scientific publications (Moscardo and others, 2010; Shafieisabet, Haratifard 2020, etc.) proves that youth participation in sustainable tourism is still low, especially there is not enough research provided to show sustainable tourism perception and features of sustainable tourism in action among youth. Aim of this thesis is to examine youth participation in promotion of sustainable tourism and to form possible sustainable tourism directions of improvement to develop and promote sustainable tourism among youth. Methods of scientific literature and document analysis helped to clear the concept of sustainability, sustainable development, define sustainable tourism conception. Disclosed sustainable tourism main principles, features, dimensions, indicators, and criteria. Also, review of the possibilities of involving young people in sustainability have been examined. An analysis of strategic documents has been carried out to find out the direction of sustainable tourism development, to be precise and to act as a step in the development of sustainable tourism. The master's thesis presents the performed quantitative and qualitative research. Using survey questionnaire youth participation in sustainable tourism and understanding of the concept of sustainable tourism was disclosed, also it showed the preferences of youth travel and application of sustainable tourism principles while traveling. A qualitative study using interview method was designed to reveal the possible directions of youth participation in the implementation of the principles of strengthening sustainable tourism. The survey showed that young people are not sufficiently familiar with the concept of sustainable tourism, only 24.7% of respondents in the 16-25 age group said that the concept of sustainable tourism is well understandable by them, so there is a need to find ways and opportunities to develop sustainable tourism. Youth participation in the implementation of the principles of sustainable tourism is revealed through various aspects of the tourism context (transport, choice of accommodation, sustainable travel behavior, provisions for sustainable tourism, etc.). Young people are oriented towards sustainable behaviour both in their daily lives (buying food, using household appliances, water) and when traveling, but they identify the lack of information about sustainable tourism as a key problem in achieving even more active implementation of the principles of sustainability. The master's thesis forms possible directions for strengthening the participation of young people in the development of sustainable tourism. |
