REPRESENTATION OF SPA TOURISM IN THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA

Abstract

Today's tourism movements involve a huge number of tourists. Each of them has a different interest or need that needs to be satisfied. Some tourists wants swimming, others sunbathing, others wants skiing or hiking, and some of them wants visiting the cultural-historical monuments. However, apart from what the tourists want, the satisfaction of the needs also depends from the tourist offer, what is offered to the tourists. The following factors play a role here: what types of transportation are available for that destination, what accommodation facilities are there, what tourist resources are available, etc. There are several aspects of tourism, according to: tourist needs, attractive-motivational values, according to the tourist season, the way the trips are organized, etc. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to see the representation of spa tourism in the Republic of North Macedonia in relation to other types of tourism. In this case, the division is made into city tourism (the city of Skopje as a tourist attraction), spa tourism, which includes all spa centers in the Republic of Macedonia, mountain tourism, lake tourism and all other types of tourism that are represented in the country. Methodology: To achieve the set goal, the methods that were used are analysis and retrospective analysis of the number of domestic and foreign tourists and the number of overnight stays in the Republic of North Macedonia for the period from 2017 to 2021. The data were collected by the State Statistics Office and were processed tabularly and graphically. The analysis was performed on the basis of previously studied scientific theoretical content of materials that include: literature, books, magazines and newspapers, reports, relevant publications, on-line databases, as well as all other published materials. Results: In the researched period from 2017 to 2021, the most attractive places for domestic tourists to visit are lake places (64%), while for foreign tourists it is the city of Skopje with (43%) of tourists. Spas are in the last place in terms of visits for both domestic (5%) and foreign tourists (1%). According to the number of overnight stays, spa tourism is in second place for domestic visitors (10%), while for foreign tourists it remains in last place with 2% of the total overnight stays. Conclusions: Spa tourism is the least developed tourism in the Republic of North Macedonia. From the total number of visitors in the analyzed 5-year period, only 5% of domestic tourists and 1% of foreign tourists visited the spas. In terms of the number of overnight stays, spa tourism is in second place for domestic tourists with 10% and in last place with 2% for foreign tourists.