ABSTRACT
Socio-cultural impacts of tourism are often hard to identify or to measure and are often the subject of personal value judgments. There is a clear message from many local tourism destinations for a need to ensure that tourism is developed in a way that is ecological, economic and socially sustainable. Successful performance in destination management requires a new and practical tourism paradigm combining excellence, co-creation and co-operation, and high quality services. Development of innovative tourism products is aimed at increasing competitiveness, facilitating sustainable tourism development, and consequently increasing tourism turnover. Travellers seek more and more intimate encounters with real people and places without distraction the focus is on promoting travel to less-travelled destinations while still providing a high-standard customer service. Many local destinations prove this to be the case in the present pandemic situation; these destinations survived the first wave of crisis with a relatively modest decrease in visits.
