As part of the national elections for the project “European Destinations of Excellence”, National Tourism Organization of Serbia has organized the contest “Tourism and intangible cultural heritage”. This year’s Serbian winner is Knjaževac municipality with the tourist event “Molitva under Midžor”.
National Tourism Organization of Serbia has received 40 applications for the competition which aims to recognize and reward the destinations which have based their tourism offers on the promotion of their own territorial-specific intangible cultural heritage, such as crafts, artifacts, oral traditions, events, customs, traditional food, etc.
After officially being granted a status for an EU candidate, Serbia has, for the first time since 2005., received an opportunity to participate in the program organized by European Commission. The objectives of the program are to increase the visibility of the lesser known tourist destinations, creating awareness of the diversity and quality of European tourism offer, promotion of all European countries and regions, reducing seasonality and directing tourist traffic to non-traditional destinations, with rewarding sustainable forms of tourism.
For the winner of the first competition was selected municipality of Knjaževac with the tourist event “Molitva under Midžor”, which was added to the list of elements of the intangible cultural heritage of the Republic of Serbia.
As follow up destinations were chosen:
National awards ceremony for the winning, and follow up destinations, will be held in celebration of World Tourism Day, and the “Tourist Flower” awards at the end of September this year.
Selected destinations in Serbia will be enlisted in the network of “European Destinations of Excellence ” (EDEN Network), whose objectives are to create a platform for the exchange of good practices among the awarded destinations and encouraging other destinations in Europe to adopt a model of sustainable tourism development.
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