A horseback riding trail stretching from northern Serbia's region Vojvodina to the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina officially opened on Thursday, becoming the latest tourist attraction in the Western Balkans.
“Equestrian tourism is one of the most popular forms of adventure tourism. It is practised by some 45 million people in Europe alone and it is expanding,” said Snjezana Derviskadic, a representative of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) in charge of tourism promotion and development.
According to her, this sort of tourism started spreading in Southeast Europe in the 1980s but has not until now received a regional dimension in the Western Balkans.
The 500-kilometres route was designed by the Fund for Micro-regional Tourism Cluster Subotica-Palic, a beneficiary of the EU-funded Tourism Development and Promotion Grant Programme, implemented by the RCC.
“This new Balkan route will connect to an existing Europe-wide route passing through Hungary and will network 52 farmers and horseback riding clubs, from Vojvodina to Herzegovina, making them part of a regional tourism value chain,” said Derviskadic, adding that this is relevant for the families living in remote villages who will now have an additional source of income as they start catering and providing accommodation to visitors.
The route is based on 10 to 20 kilometres long sections and will utilise ‘Robinson by day, king by night’ approach, where days would include riding adventure through nature and evenings would provide time for leisure and storytelling, i.e. getting to know local culture and way of life.
Isabel Lanji Hnis, the Chairwoman of the Fund for Micro-regional Tourism Cluster Subotica-Palic, said the grant they received through the project made it possible to develop a kind of regional cooperation that was missing amongst the horse keepers in the Western Balkans. It also, she stressed, involved local farmers and their families into the tourism industry.
“We hope that the regional route will not only contribute to bringing more tourists to the region but that it will also help make horseback riding more popular in the Western Balkans and that more clubs and farmers will join the trail and make it grow.”
