Assessment of International Tourists' Perceived Sustainability of a Tourism Destination

Despite sustainability attracting significant interest in tourism research, few articles directly analyze foreign tourists’ perceptions concerning destination sustainability. So far, the perceptual and preferential focus of foreign tourists evaluates the perspective of destination image, products, attractions, attitude, behavior, activities, and qualitative studies. The interest in the impact of sustainability on tourism destinations and the tourism industry is a more recent phenomenon. Since destination sustainability is related to the perceptual domain, the interest moved to the perceptual variables of destination sustainability elements. The association between the perception and sustainability is of interest to many stakeholders, including management authorities such as municipalities, councils, and tourism management organizations, closely monitoring their operations since the public money funds their project activities. The motivation of foreign tourists concerning sustainability and what they are most concerned about are the two questions that the paper attempts to address. In this paper, the empirical research investigates the perceptual levels of foreign tourists visiting Belgrade, Serbia, highlighting their attitude through economic, social, and environmental elements of destination sustainability. The study shows that foreign tourists perceive sustainability in Serbia slightly above the average. Future research should include time-series data for monitoring and tracking changes in the perceptual levels of destination sustainability elements.