Rural tourism in Serbia had its chance to shine with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to determine to what extent the quality of rural service can contribute to ...improving rural tourism, and predictions for the continuation of the trend in terms of increasing the number of overnight stays in rural households. The obtained results show a small number of services in the sector could be improved, but that all elements except price value can influence the future development of rural tourism and that the number of overnight stays is expected to continue to grow. The importance and innovativeness of the research is reflected in the specific methodology that was applied, and the results complement those of previous research. It has been shown that villages in Serbia can create a barrier against COVID-19 through tourism.
The study focuses on the present state and the assessments of geotourism development of the two most representative tufa deposits in the Djerdap National Park—the first UNESCO Global Geopark in ...Serbia. The findings were designated through implementing the freshly upgraded methodology—M-GAM-1-2 based on an early modified geosites assessment model (M-GAM). To overcome the limitations of the previous model, the authors implemented additional enhancements and involved members of the local community (residents and authorities) in the study to comprehensively evaluate the observed sites. The outcomes revealed that the attitudes of all stakeholders should be taken into consideration in order to develop geotourism properly, additionally attract visitors, and preserve tufa deposits for future generations of locals and visitors. Moreover, geotourism at the observed sites can be one of the vital activities of the population, as well as a type of compensation for various limitations in the development, which are imposed by the regimes of natural and cultural heritage protection within the recently established UNESCO Global Geopark.
The aim of the study was to investigate whether different elements of the work environment (manifested by job demands, job control, and social support) and personal resources were linked to ...employees' well-being at work. Based on data gathered from 574 employees in the hospitality industry in Serbia, it was also tested if personal resources, expressed through self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience, could moderate the relationship between work environment and employees' well-being at work. Correlation analyses showed that high job demands had negative effects on employees' well-being, causing negative emotional reactions to their job, while job control and social support developed positive relationships with positive employees' well-being. The moderating effect analysis found that personal resources can fully moderate the relationship between job demands and well-being at work, and job control and well-being at work. On the other side, personal resources were not a significant moderator in the relationship between social support and well-being at work, indicating that even when employees have adequate personal resources, they are not enough to decrease the negative effects of lack of social support on employees' well-being at work. This shows how important the support of supervisors and colleagues is for employees in hospitality.
Local markets have been a special setting throughout human history. Apart from their important social role, they had immeasurable economic importance as primary forms of exchange of goods (trade). ...Nonetheless, they experienced numerous transformational changes that affected their functioning. Like other countries, Serbia has a long tradition of market activity. However, several novelties have been introduced in recent years. Among many, the process of e-fiscalization is the main issue. Therefore, the focus of our research is based on a qualitative analysis of online media content (news and comments) related to the fiscalization of market activity. The attitudes of different categories of participants (state authorities, vendors, and customers) were analyzed. LIGRE open-access software was used for this purpose. The results of the analysis showed conflicting parties. Legislators emphasize the exclusive positive effects, while vendors point to the negative side of fiscalization. As a third party, customers (service users) have an undefined attitude in relation to fiscalization (pros/cons/neutral). There is an agreement to introduce market activity into legal flows. However, the key prerequisite is the prior resolution of a number of problems (working conditions, business costs, market monopoly, etc.).
All over the globe, outdoor sports events are highly affected by weather conditions that frequently influence the comfort of the players and sports fans, the duration, or even the cancelation of the ...event. To verify the range of weather-induced impacts on selected Major League Baseball events, this interdisciplinary study investigated the causes of unexpected postponements of several Major League Baseball games in March and April 2018, according to official weather reports in the event host destinations. The impact was measured by a recurrent neural network with long short-term memory as an investigation model. Autocorrelation analysis was conducted between all input and target fields. The research focused on the explanation of the influence of weather risks on the event host destinations. Moreover, the study is based on projecting an effective instrument for managing weather risks and then evaluating the tourism services that the future climatic conditions will support. The long short-term memory analysis revealed that solar activity had the greatest influence on the temperature. On the other hand, humidity and air pressure depended very little on solar activity; this finding was confirmed by the zero values of the sensitivity. These values encourage further research on weather disturbances and their connections with outdoor sports and tourism activities.
Employee satisfaction is the main factor achieving high work performance, providing quality services in the tourism sector, which directly affects the increase in productivity and commitment to the ...organization. The research is focused on determining the factors of job satisfaction and commitment to the institution by the female workforce. The authors conducted a survey in tourism companies in Novi Sad (the second-largest city in Serbia), based on a sample of 610 women in total, using a standardized MSQ questionnaire for job satisfaction, and Meyer and Allen’s organizational commitment scale. Three multiple regression analyses were used to determine the relationship between job satisfaction factors and organizational commitment factors. The results confirm the existence and strength of correlation between satisfaction factors and types of organizational commitment, and the fact that the position of women in the tourism sector is not at an enviable level, and that they remain in the same organization because of the small number of alternatives and moral obligations.
Biosphere reserves are protected areas vital for the preservation of living and inanimate nature, including the protection of anthropogenic values and cultural heritage. The basins of the Mura, ...Drava, and Danube rivers stretch through Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Hungary, and Serbia and form a unique spatial unity. The Biosphere Reserve concept defines about 300,000 hectares of core and buffer zones and around 700,000 hectares of transition zones. This large, primarily marshy area is rich in natural and cultural heritage. This area is called “the Amazon of Europe” and represents the world’s first Transboundary UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, “Mura-Drava-Danube,” among five countries. This biosphere reserve is important for the preservation of the natural and cultural values of the entire region. Especially rare plant and animal representatives live in this unique geographical unity. Some species inhabit only this area. A total of 900,000 people living around this reserve have a rich cultural tradition and heritage that needs to be protected. The objective of the research is to examine the function that the selected protected areas have in the sustainable development of tourism. Quantitative methodology was used in the research. An analysis of the conducted questionnaire was performed using the SPSS v.21 software, as well as a comparative analysis of the attitudes of 1295 residents from three countries. Residents’ attitudes refer to the level of ecological, economic, socio-cultural, and institutional sustainability of this biosphere reserve as a tourist destination. The research results indicate that the four dimensions of sustainability have significant values and that the selected areas have an important function in the sustainable development of tourism.
Abstract Introduction Education about food safety is important for public health, and the best place to provide it is a university environment. The aim of the research was to assess food safety ...knowledge and self-reported food handling practices among students in Serbia. Methods The research was performed from October to December 2020, using an electronic survey among students at the University of Belgrade, University of Niš, and University of Novi Sad. Results The average students’ age was 21 (SD=1.7), and genderwise the proportion was 54% women and 46% men. The average score for self-reported food handling practices was 45.7% (SD=15.7), and for food safety knowledge 57.9% (SD=15.7). The results showed that students whose field of study is health-related (e.g. nutrition, chemistry, biology, medicine and pharmacy) had the highest score for self-reported food handling practices (48.8%) and for food safety knowledge (57.7%). As for age, the senior students showed the highest score for food safety (57.2%), followed by third-year students (53.8%), second-year (51.9%), and first-year students (49.9%). Conclusions The first-year students and those whose field of the study was not health-related showed the lowest score in the answers to the questions about food handling practices and food safety knowledge. However, the longer students study, the more knowledge they have, which is not the case for those whose studies are non-health-related.
We not only reproduce a burst of short-wavelength spin waves (SWs) observed in a recent experiment S. Woo et al., Nat. Phys. 13, 448 (2017) on magnetic-field-driven annihilation of two magnetic ...domain walls (DWs) but, furthermore, we predict that this setup additionally generates highly unusual pumping of electronic spin currents in the absence of any bias voltage. Prior to the instant of annihilation, their power spectrum is ultrabroadband, so they can be converted into rapidly changing in time charge currents, via the inverse spin Hall effect, as a source of THz radiation of bandwidth ≃27 THz where the lowest frequency is controlled by the applied magnetic field. The spin pumping stems from time-dependent fields introduced into the quantum Hamiltonian of electrons by the classical dynamics of localized magnetic moments (LMMs) comprising the domains. The pumped currents carry spin-polarized electrons which, in turn, exert backaction on LMMs in the form of nonlocal damping which is more than twice as large as conventional local Gilbert damping. The nonlocal damping can substantially modify the spectrum of emitted SWs when compared to widely used micromagnetic simulations where conduction electrons are completely absent. Since we use a fully microscopic (i.e., Hamiltonian-based) framework, self-consistently combining time-dependent electronic nonequilibrium Green functions with the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation, we also demonstrate that previously derived phenomenological formulas miss ultrabroadband spin pumping while underestimating the magnitude of nonlocal damping due to nonequilibrium electrons.