Speleotourism in Slovenia: balancing between mass tourism and geoheritage protection

Slovenia is considered as the cradle of karst geotourism as cave tourism started there as early as the Middle Ages. To date more than 12,000 caves were discovered from which 22 have the status of tourist caves. From these, 10 were assessed using the M-GAM model (Modified Geosite Assessment Model) to...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inOpen Geosciences Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 344 - 357
Main Authors Tičar, J., Tomić, N., Breg Valjavec, M., Zorn, M., Marković, S. B., Gavrilov, M. B.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Warsaw De Gruyter 01.01.2018
De Gruyter Poland
Subjects
Caves
geoheritage
geotourism
Karst
M-GAM
Mass tourism
Slovenia
speleology
sustainable tourism
Tourism
tourist caves
Tourists
Slovenia
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Slovenia is considered as the cradle of karst geotourism as cave tourism started there as early as the Middle Ages. To date more than 12,000 caves were discovered from which 22 have the status of tourist caves. From these, 10 were assessed using the M-GAM model (Modified Geosite Assessment Model) to gain information for better future management strategies. The results show that visitors of Slovenian tourist caves mostly appreciate their natural values, as they prefer caves without major tourism infrastructure and they pay attention to their protection status. The model also confirmed that the two most important tourist caves (Postojna Cave and Škocjan Caves) have the leading geotourism role and that the management of tourist caves via a regional park as is the case of Škocjan Caves is an example of good practice.
ISSN:2391-5447
2391-5447
DOI:10.1515/geo-2018-0027