Medieval monasteries of Serbia: Untapped wealth for sustainable tourism development

The history of a nation is reflected in its cultural and historical resources. Sacral monuments of Serbia today represent an inevitably attractive factor and an underlying segment of a specific form of tourism and cultural tourism called religious tourism. Some of the most important religious destinations in the world, with their inexhaustible sacral treasures, have recorded a very significant foreign exchange revenue from tourism. It contributes to cultural heritage as one of the most important sources in tourism, which attracts a significant number of tourists in the world and represents an important potential for sustainable tourism development. Tourism development of the Republic of Serbia, among other things, is based on the valorization of cultural and historical heritage, among which an important place is occupied by monasteries and churches of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Serbian Orthodox Church has many facilities that have significant historical, cultural and religious value in the national and international context. The monasteries of Raška, of the Moravian and Serbian Byzantine School, but also those at Fruška Gora and in the region of Ovčar Kablar stand out as the most important religious monuments in Serbia. In the year when we celebrate 800 years of the autocracy of the Serbian Orthodox Church, this paper examines the values of the sacral monuments that were created as the endowments of the Nemanjić family, which represent still underused resources for the development of tourism in Serbia.