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Needs, expectations and anticipated benefits of tourism vary greatly from one destination to the next, and there is certainly no "one size fits all" approach to creation of national tourism strategy and design of the destination tourism product.
As baby boomers move into mid-life and retirement, their expectations for travel will shift toward educational, self-improvement, and in-depth experiences. Destinations featuring cultural tourism, heritage tourism, sports tourism, active tourism, adventure travel, and ecotourism will be in greater demand.
Travelers from urban centers often choose rural places as vacation destinations, attracted by the quieter, less frenzied pace and the opportunity to engage in unique recreational and cultural activities. Maintaining this ambience is crucial to sustain urban visitors' expectations and requires careful management. A destination's capacity dictates the visitors it can accommodate without negatively effecting resources or local residents' quality of life. While increasing visitors may be a goal, small communities must consider the price of hosting tourists. As a result, destinations will increasingly emphasize sustainable tourism.
It can be assumed that there is considerable opportunity for increasing tourism to the new EU countries and Eastern European countries as a result of new trends in tourist needs and expectations.
The growing concern worldwide over global warming and climate change combined with rising oil prices, the energy crisis and the economic slowdown has led to dramatic changes in consumer attitudes, travel seasonality and other travel patterns and trends. It is influencing individual choices regarding travel destinations, the length of trips and other factors such as the availability of environmentally-friendly modes of transport and environmentally-responsible service providers.
Tourism has one of the highest development priority of all industries in the world. The sustainable use of natural resources, the involvement of the public and private sector, the attractiveness of products and international competitiveness are the factors which will decide on employment and prosperity for large sections of the population, for the coming generation as well.
The objective of the paper is to identify the drivers for new trends and motives for creation of different destinations' products and to examine how these specific market trends could contribute towards tourism growth within Europe and to look at the impact of such trends on the changing customer needs. An additional target is...