Tourism Intensity in the NUTS III Regions of Slovakia

Abstract

Although Slovakia is not yet well known on the international tourism market, regional specificity and variability predetermine the Slovak area for the development of tourism, which has become increasingly popular in recent years. The aim of this paper is to assess and visualize the tourism intensity in the NUTS III regions of Slovakia. Therefore, we calculate indicators such as Defert index, tourism intensity rate, Charvat index, index of territorial density of tourism, tourist density rate, and index of land use. Results show that Bratislava Region had the biggest volume of tourism intensity; the second position occupied the Zilina Region; and the Presov Region ranked third. We found out that there has been a positive change in the development of almost all tourism intensity indicators during the period from 2001 to 2016. Based on the values of the calculated indicators, it seems that Slovakia still has the opportunity to develop tourism sector in all regions.