Revista de turism [Nr. 9] 40 POTENTIAL OF SERBIA TO GENERATE TOURISTIC FLOWS IN TRANSITION PERIOD Aleksandra STANOJLOVIC Phd Gordana JOVANOVIC MSc Vuk GARACA Department of Geography, Tourism and Hotel Management, Faculty of Science, Novi Sad, Serbia Abstract Generative regions are the areas that generate touristic demand. It is important to aknowledge the potential of certain countries to generate touristic flows. This is essential asset for the development of destination countries in its souroundings, as well as faraway tourism destinations. The contribution of every country to the world tourism should not be ignored, as it plays its role in the global tourism phenomenon. Serbia is a small country with many demographical and economical problems. Despite the relativelly low standard of living of its population, the significant number of Serbs travel abroad every year.. This research examine the potential of Serbia to generate tourism flows, nowdays and in the future, the main destinations of Serbian tourists, the amount of money spent by Serbians on tourism and the role that tourism have in their culture of living. Key words: demography, Serbia, tourism demand, transition. JEL classification: L83, H76 1. INTRODUCTION With appearance of tourism as a modern phenomenon we have come up to the situation where tourism has become its own purpuse and not only the instrument which leads to other goals. Modern tourist is very complexed being whose behaviour depends on many economical, sociological, political, psihological and other factors. (Hudman and Davis, 1994) Three basic forms of tourism are identified: domestic tourism where residents are visiting their own country, inbound tourism where nonresidents are travelling in a given country, and outbound tourism where residents are travelling in another country. These forms can be further combined in many ways in order to derive the following categories of tourism: internal tourism that involves both domestic and inbound tourism, national tourism that involves both domestic and outbound tourism, and international tourism that involves both inbound and outbound tourism (Theobald, 2005). To the economy of one country of greatest significance is statistics based on inbound and outbound tourism. From economical point of view every country wants to have the large inbound tourism and small outbound tourism. Outbound tourism consumption, by products and categories of visitors (visitor final consumption expenditure in cash) comprises the consumption of resident visitors outside the economic territory of the country of reference and provided by non-residents. It does not include goods and services acquired for or after the trip within the country of reference (TSA, 2001). Countries that are the main generators (sources) of international tourism are those in which "outbound tourism" (number of nights that domestic tourists spent abroad) is higher than the so-called „inbound tourism“ (number of nights that foreign tourists spent in the host country), or where the income from international tourism is less than the national expenditure on international tourist travel of domestic population (Bovagnet, 2006). Tourist demand is defined as the total number of persons who travel or want to travel in order to use the resources and tourist facilities in areas that are outside their places of permanent residence. Effective demand includes the actual number of participants in the tourism and is often measured by using statistical data on tourist traffic and the number of tourist nights. Generating regions are the areas in which exist the main causes of tourism developement, where the touristic needs are created, and in which the main financial and other socio-economic conditions exist to satisfy that needs (Hudman and Davis, 1994). To aknowledge the potential of certain countries to generate touristic flows is essential for the development of destintion countries in its souroundings, as well as faraway tourism destinations. It is difficult to generalize about the pattern of intenational tourism flows as individual countries display marked differences and contrasts. Similarly, each destination receives a distinctive mix of tourist origins and modes of transport. The contribution of every country, even small one, to the world tourism expansion should not be ignored, as it plays its role in the global tourism phenomenon. The major tourism generating countries are those in high mass- consuption stage of economic development, although as countries reach the drive to maturity stage they become significant generating markets. For any particular destination country, a typical list of the top generating markets would contain neighbouring states