ISSN 2712-0554 Heritage and Sustainable Development Original Research Vol. 4, No. 2, November 2022, pp.122-133 https://doi.org/10.37868/hsd.v4i2.131 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that allows others to share and adapt the material for any purpose (even commercially), in any medium with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. 122 The phenomenon of ethno villages in Bosnian rural tourism Alma Hudović Kljuno 1 , Maida Halilović 2* 1,2 Architecture Department, International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia *Corresponding author E-mail: maidahalil@gmail.com Received Aug. 3, 2022 Revised Sep. 29, 2022 Accepted Nov. 15, 2022 Abstract Due to its diverse cultural heritage and rich natural resources, Bosnia is lately becoming more popular among foreign visitors. Currently, many tourists are increasingly focusing on outdoor and rural tourism. To be able to fulfill their needs in terms of accommodation and activities, during the last several years many ethno villages are built throughout the country. The design of such artificial ethno villages often borders on kitsch and does not represent authentic architectural styles of the region. Some of them, as introduced in this paper, tend more towards mass tourism and luxury accommodation offers that are in contradiction to the idea of ecological ethno villages. On the other hand, many villages in the country are partly or entirely abandoned due to the population displacement into cities. This paper aims to compare the touristic offer and quality of the newly constructed ethno villages as a new form of rural tourism with existing, vernacular villages in the country. The research is a comparison study, also addressed by the analytical-historical method with the auxiliary method of the case study which incorporated recordings of site conditions. The focus of this research is the village Idbar and its prospects that offer a solid base for further development of ecological ethno tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which could potentially become one of the leading branches of rural tourism in the country. © The Author 2022. Published by ARDA. Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina, ecological rural tourism, ethno villages, heritage tourism, village Idbar 1. Introduction Bosnia’s natural beauty, advantageous geographical location, welcoming and hospitable nature of its people, rich cultural and historical heritage, as well as gastronomy offerings, attracted a lot of tourists in the past several years. Nonetheless, the development of rural tourism and expansion of the touristic offers often result in construction interventions within the natural setting. This trend from the beginning of the 2000s is ongoing and is displayed through the establishment of so-called ethno villages that tend to represent the way of living in rural areas in the pre-industrial period through architecture and different artefacts used by peasants. These are mostly privately financed projects that often cover large areas and are essentially not representing a realistic picture of the village life, but rather evoking some romantic feelings about it. Čiča and Mlinar argued that “conceptualization and implementation of those projects is frequently conducted without preliminary consultations with any competent institution and profession, including conservators. A caveat should therefore be expressed that the implementation of these projects as well as their tourist-oriented presentation can be