English - Convention on Biological Diversity

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COUNTRY STUDY FOR BIODIVERSITY OF THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
European countries. Nevertheless, this is one of the most severe threats to biodiversity in
Macedonia.
A more detailed presentation of the impacts from the transportation sector is
contained in Section 3.6.1.3.
5.9. Tourism and recreation
5.9.1. Current status and economic importance of the sector
The Department of Tourism within the Ministry of Economy plays the main role in
creating the touristic policy of the Republic of Macedonia. It is responsible for all the
legal means by which tourism is regulated, and the Law on Tourism, Catering and
Hospitality provides the highest standard of management. Apart from the Ministry,
numerous social and economic organisations function within the system, such as: the
Tourist Union of the Republic of Macedonia, tourist unions of individual cities,
numerous travel agencies (around 160), numerous touristic and catering facilities, the
Faculty of Tourism and Catering in Ohrid, the Department of Tourism in the Institute of
Geography (Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics) in Skopye etc. Of the four
main types of touristic destinations (City of Skopye, tourist health/spa resorts, tourist
vacation resorts [mountains and lakes] and other, typically non-touristic areas), the City
of Skopye exhibited the highest tourist turnover, followed by vacation and health/spa
resorts.
At present, touristic and catering activities employ around 10,000 people (2,895 of
whom are female), or only 3.2% of the total number of employed persons in Macedonia.
Total revenues generated by tourism and catering activities during 2001 amounted to
€8.5 million or 2.0% of the total gross national product (GNP).
5.9.2. Changes in the sector over time
In reference to the tourist, catering and hospitality trades, the number of
establishments reached its highest level, 3,497, in 1990. Currently, the number of these
businesses is approximately half, or 1,798. The number of seats in catering and other
related service facilities in 1990 was 187,928; today, this number is as low as 73,759.
The total number of beds, which amounted to 82,411 in 1990, is similar, dropping to
78,913 in 1995 and to 73,759 at present. With regard to tourist turnover, the total
number of tourists in the Republic of Macedonia in 1990 was 974,537, spending a total
of 3,099,508 nights. Since this period, primarily due to social and political events in this
region of the Balkans, tourist turnover appears to have experienced a permanent
decrease, reaching its lowest value in 1997, when the country was visited by only
476,025 tourists who spent a total of 1,587,146 nights (the absolute minimum since
1978). During the three years since 2000, the number of visitors and nights spent have
noted gradual average increases, or 632,523 and 2,434,639, respectively. It is
noteworthy, however, that tourism has one of the best prospects for economic growth
considering the extraordinary favourable conditions for its development in terms of
natural, geographic and anthropogenic factors.
5.9.3. Impact on biodiversity
Considering the scope of the term ‘biodiversity,’ it is absolutely undisputable that
tourism and biodiversity are in an indivisible symbiosis, that is, in an uninterruptible
interaction with each other. The development of tourism in some regions, for example,
results in adverse impacts related to degradation of the quality of the land, which further