Tourism development, entrepreneurship and women's empowerment – Focus on Serbian countryside

Purpose: The starting premise of this study is that women's empowerment is the goal for self-realization and that the support that comes from local tourism stakeholders represents an adequate base. In many rural areas, women have established self-help groups (SHGs), which facilitate the interaction with a wide range of stakeholders. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of SHGs on female entrepreneurship and self-employment in tourism. Design/methodology/approach: To examine the research question, this study adopted a quantitative research that included a sample of 513 women in a less-advanced rural area in Serbia. For the data analysis, the generalized linear regression model (GLM) was used. Findings: According to the results, self-employment is the leading goal of women's empowerment. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation in the research and the authors’ suggestion for future research is to increase the sample size of female respondents, so examination of their attitudes and role in the travel business in their local settings might reach higher significance. The second issue that the authors would like to point out is a highly local character of our study, so the future research should involve other rural areas in the country and from abroad (e.g. similar undeveloped countryside with noticeable, active women's role in local entrepreneurship). Practical implications: The most important practical implications of this paper are twofold: (1) the results of the research have shown that the tourist potential of rural areas can be enhanced through local tourism stakeholders' support; (2) women without professional interest or jobs in rural areas, especially in the areas where the population is traditionally dominated by men (husband/brother/father), have a chance to earn and to be economically more independent. This research can affect future studies to investigate other aspects of empowerment depending on the difference of regions, from one side, and also alternative opportunities for tourism and local development in less-advanced rural areas, from another side. Originality/value: The study analyzes the tourism potential of the rural areas (which are less advanced and mostly very poor in developing countries, such as Serbia). In this case, there are opportunities to increase employment, social inclusion of women, development of new tourism strategies, implementation of destination marketing, etc. Moreover, it contributes to future research in the field of stakeholders in tourism strategies. © 2021, Darko B. Vukovic, Marko Petrovic, Moinak Maiti and Aleksandra Vujko.

Авторы
Vukovic D.B. 1, 2 , Petrovic M.3, 4 , Maiti M.5 , Vujko A.6, 7
Издательство
Emerald Group Holdings Ltd.
Язык
Английский
Статус
Опубликовано
Год
2021
Организации
  • 1 Department of Credit and Finance, Faculty of Economics, RUDN University, Moskva, Russian Federation
  • 2 Regional Geography, Geografski institut Jovan Cvijic Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti, Beograd, Serbia
  • 3 Geografski institut Jovan Cvijic Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti, Beograd, Serbia
  • 4 Institute of Sports, Tourism and Service, South Ural State University National Research University, Chelabinsk, Russian Federation
  • 5 Department of Finance, National Research University Higher School of Economics, St Peterburg, Russian Federation
  • 6 University of Business Studies, Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • 7 European University, Faculty of European Business and Marketing, Belgrade, Serbia
Ключевые слова
GLM model; Local partners; Rural settings; Self-help groups; Women's entrepreneurship
Дата создания
20.07.2021
Дата изменения
20.07.2021
Постоянная ссылка
https://repository.rudn.ru/ru/records/article/record/74389/
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