Sumadija has got great potential for rural tourism development

Šumadija has got a large but under-exploited potential for rural tourism, and a Norwegian project "Support to the development of rural tourism in Šumadija", through which several rural households received assistance, aims to contribute to change this situation.
Member of the City Council of Kragujevac for the economy and private entrepreneurship Dalibor Jekić said that rural tourism is a new opportunity for further economic development of Kragujevac.
- This year we have introduced another line of credit, in addition to the regular line to encourage entrepreneurship and to encourage rural tourism and we decided to assign three grants for existing hosts who are already engaged in rural tourism in order to raise their capacity and improve the level of service - said Jekić to the reporters during a tour of rural households in areas of Vlakča, Stragare and Mala Vrbica.
He pointed out that the grants were designed for future hosts as well who intend to practice rural tourism.
- Kragujevac will continue its practice of encouraging rural tourism as Sumadija has a huge potential but untapped - he added.
Director of the Tourist Organization of Kragujevac Snezana Milisavljević said that, given the tourism potential, number of villages and the amount of effort to improve the quality of services, Sumadija doesn't have enough developed rural tourism or number of guests, but it has great potential.
- Rural tourism in the area of Kragujevac, or Šumadija, has great potential because of the authentic and distinctive region, but is not sufficiently developed. The plan is that by the end of the year we have a strategy for the development of tourism, an important segment of this document is rural tourism - said Milisavljević.
She stated that the project of the development of rural tourism destinations, which is funded by the embassy of Norway, was very important to the tourism organization and the rural hosts, bearing in mind that the ultimate goal of the project is to improve services for existing households and to animate an even larger number of hosts to engage in this activity.
Milisavljević reminded that the area of ​​Kragujevac has 18 registered rural households who are actively engaged in this business.
She said that Kragujevac and Sumadija offer their guests a variety of amenities and they strive to enrich the offer with new content.
Norwegian project coordinator Marija Stojadinovic said that the project was started last year in November, and that its total value is EUR 60,000 - 48,000 donations by the Embassy of Norway, and the other 12,000 local share of the city of Kragujevac.

Grad Kragujevac

Turistička organizacija Kragujevac

Ambasada Kraljevine Norveške u Beogradu

Kragujevac city

Tourist Organization of Kragujevac

Embassy of Norway in Belgrade

Snezana Milisavljavic

Sumadija

rural tourism

Support to the development of rural tourism in Sumadija

Dalibor Jekic

Vlakce

Stragare

Mala Vrbica

Marija Stojadinovic