ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF LOCAL RESIDENT'S SUPPORT AND ATTACHMENT TO THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL TOURISM DESTINATIONS

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine the key factors, which influence residents’ participation in sustainable development of rural tourism destinations in Serbia, and which are related to the resident´s support and their attachment to the place of residence. Authors also examined the potential positive impact of local community attachment and resident´s support on the benefits for residents, which are realized from tourism development as well as the sustainable aspect of the rural tourism destinations in Serbia. Methodology – The research sample includes residents of rural Serbia, who filled out an online questionnaire which was defined based on the previously conducted research by Than et al. (2020). The key variables are community attachment, resident support, and perceived benefits (socioeconomic and cultural), socio-economic, cultural, and environmental sustainability. The PLS-PM analysis was performed for data analysis in the R programming language 4.2.5. Findings – The results show that the residents' perceived benefits positively affect the sustainability of rural tourist destinations in Serbia. Although this research started from the assumption that community attachment and resident's support are positively affecting the perceived benefits of rural households and sustainable development of Serbia as a tourist destination, the obtained research results did not confirm this. Contribution – This study enables a more complete understanding of the relevance of the inclusion of residents in the rural destination´s sustainable development, but also can be used as an important source of information for defining and implementing future policies and strategies of rural development.