Tourism Planning and Development in Eastern Europe

Three decades ago, the hypermobility of tourists from the days before the global pandemic was truly unthinkable in Eastern Europe. The borders were closed and the region isolated from the rest of the world. Despite an extraordinary transformation of tourism in the area since, Eastern Europe remains under-explored in tourism studies. This book fills the gap by outlining contemporary strategies for tourism development in post-socialist countries, considering the opportunities and challenges as well as the initiatives and approaches to sustainability. Reviewing tourism development and planning across Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Romania, this book:- Offers a contemporary and insightful outlook of Eastern Europe tourism, with a wide range of case studies from inter-disciplinary and single-disciplinary perspectives; - Uses varied methodological approaches and research methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, informal conversations, document analysis, netnography, questionnaires and secondary data, to form an interesting and diverse treatise;- Considers post-COVID tourism and the significant role of tourism stakeholders in its re-development.Illuminating the various economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts that tourism has created, this book is a valuable reference for researchers and students of tourism and related disciplines, as well as anyone interested in the development of Eastern Europe.

Dr Hania Janta is a Research Coordinator at the Department for Cultural Studies and European Ethnology, University of Basel, where she manages an ESRC, EU-India Platform-funded "FilmInd - The Indian Film Industries as a driver of new socio-economic connections between India and Europe" project. Previously she worked as a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at Bournemouth University, School of Tourism, and as Senior Lecturer at University of Surrey, SHTM, where she managed a large doctoral programme in tourism and hospitality management. Since 2016 she remains a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Surrey. Her research interests include tourism labour & human capital issues as well as contemporary forms of mobility. She has done research in the context of Eastern Europe focusing on Poland and Slovakia. She has published nineteen per-reviewed papers in a range of journals, including Annals of Tourism Research and Tourism Management, numerous book chapters, and co-edited two special issues: on Reconceptualising VFR Mobilities in Population, Space and Place, 2015 (with Cohen & Williams) and Human Capital, Competences and Youth migration in JEMS, 2019 (with Lulle & Emilsson). She is an Evaluator/Expert Reviewer for the European Commission and various National Science Foundation bodies.

Konstantinos Andriotis is a Professor in Tourism at Middlesex University London. He holds a PhD in Tourism Development and Planning (Bournemouth University, 2000) and a Post Doc in Tourism Marketing (Hellenic Open University, 2006). He edits the 'International Journal of Tourism Policy', the 'Journal of Qualitative Research in Tourism' and the CABI Regional Tourism Series. He has an h-index of 32 and more than 4500 citations. He was listed in the Stanford University list of top 2 per cent of scientists in the World. His research interests include tourism development and planning, alternative forms of tourism, tourism experience and degrowth.

Dimitrios Stylidis, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in Tourism Marketing at the University of Crete, Greece. Prior to this, he was Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Research Cluster Leader at Middlesex University London, and a Postdoc Researcher and Visiting Lecturer at the Ben-Gurion University, Israel. Dimitrios holds an MSc and PhD in tourism from the University of Surrey, U.K. His research interests include place image and marketing, tourist destination image and behaviour, tourism impacts and sustainable development. His work has been published in several journals including Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, and Journal of Sustainable Tourism.