Sustainable Tourism to the Part of Transboundary UNESCO Biosphere Reserve “Mura-Drava-Danube”. A Case of Serbia, Croatia and Hungary

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you very much for sending me this interesting manuscript again.

After a second revision, I can establish that the manuscript has been substantially improved and has satisfactorily made the corrections sent. Now if it corresponds to a scientific study for its process and contribution. For this reason, I recommend its publication in the prestigious Journal Sustainability.

Author Response

Respected colleague,

Thank you very much for the shortcomings in our work. All your suggestions that we have taken into account have made this paper useful to many researchers of sustainable tourism in protected areas around the world. Thank you for your cooperation.

The Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors made some additions to the manuscript, but I have found so many repetitions of the same phrases and references, in the Introduction, Literature review and some parts of methods. This is a long paper, and repetition of the same context, takes the reader away from the real purposes of the MS. Also, paper needs some English corrections, in the lines highlighted red. 

Author Response

Respected colleague,
Thank you very much for your outstanding comments on our work.
We have taken into account all your suggestions from the second round of reviews.
According to that we have eliminated all phrases and references that are repeated in the text.
Also we have replaced some parts of the paper with new sentences.
All changes in operation are marked with the Track Changes option.
We also did proofreading of the English language.
We believe that all your suggestions for corrections have made this work a quality research for many readers.

Thank you for your outstanding cooperation.

The Authors

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Introduction

There are some suggestions:

-        44-53 only one reference. Please correct this.

-        Again 53-61 only one reference

-        63-75 still should be divided from who was cited, not just in the end after 10 lines 2 references

-        80-83 This belongs to Methodology?

The introduction section misses the important part – why are local residents’ attitudes/perceptions so important? There is extensive literature regarding this topic.

Author/authors chose randomly three protected areas in the Biosphere Reserves that have already been established. For Example, in Serbia that is Bačko Podunavlje Biosphere Reserve (2017) and includes five protected areas. It includes Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve (which author/authors) chose, but also Tikvara Nature Park, Karađorđevo Special Nature Reserve, protected area Šuma Junaković and Bukinski Hrastik. The author/authors chose one protected area from Serbia to introduce lessons about sustainable tourism? On the other hand, there is a paper that included local residents' attitudes toward sustainable tourism development in the Bačko Podunavlje BR (Assessment of residents’ attitudes toward sustainable tourism development - A case study of Bačko Podunavlje Biosphere Reserve, Serbia). Same when it comes to Hungary and Croatia. Kopački rit and Danube Drava NP have first signed bilateral establishment for TB MDD which was approved in 2012. Then Slovenia BR Mura in 2018, Serbia Bačko Podunavlje 2017, and Austria Lower Mura Valley in 2018. Finally, 5-country Biosphere Reserve Mura-Drava-Danube in September 2021. Also, there are papers about residents' attitudes in Kopački Rit and Danube Drava NP. 

Literature Review

First, you should make some introduction sentences to the literature review.

Also part of the importance of attitudes of the local community. A crucial part of your article is investigating local people's attitudes. So where is that in the literature review and introduction?

Research Area

183-184 Why just three protected areas? Why focus on protected areas here when there is Bačko Podunavlje and Danube Drava BR? Two biosphere reserves with several protected areas.

185-190 Why did you choose just Sombor, Apatin, Bački Monoštor, and Bezdan? Why not include other settlements? If you decided to choose just these four you should explain the reasons. Bačko Podunavlje includes 26 settlements and a population of about 147,000.

When it comes to the percentage of respondents for Gornje Podunavlje (where is approximately 64,000 people author/authors have 41.15.% (of total respondents), but for Kopački rit where are 100.000 people but much fewer respondents (37.15%). Why is that? Also, why choose just Osijek, Kopačevo and Bilje?

The National Park Danube-Drava – again about 62,000 inhabitants, but only 21.70%.

4. Materials and Methods

219 - of social networks? What social networks?

“Used social networks to distribute online questionnaires, while the survey with written 220 questionnaires was carried out in person?

How many questionaries’ were collected online? How many in person?

Results

I have already explained for a number of inhabitants and respondents. In Croatia for this protected area are the most inhabitants 100,000. Serbia and Hungary are approximately the same (62-64,000). Why then for Croatia just 21.70%? More questionaries’ from Croatia should be collected or elaborate the reason why it is just 21.70%.

Reliability analyses were performed to test the internal consistency of items measuring each factor. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used. But why just alpha? In my opinion composite reliability (or the factor-level reliability)  CR and average variance extracted (AVE) should be calculated and explained.

For institutional dimension 0.59, 0.60 and 0.61…This is very low, on the edge, according to many researchers. Alpha score of 0.7 or higher is the desired reliability while 0.6 or higher is an acceptable reliability coefficient according to Nunnally & Bernstein (1994). 

Conclusions and discussion

296-305 References?

Limitations of work?

Future research? Management implications?

Originality is lacking, but it seems that the authors do not understand the difference between protected areas and biosphere reserves. Surveys of the attitudes of the local population have already been conducted in these protected areas. If they already wanted you to include part of the TB MDD, then the author/authors should have included the individual biosphere that is part of TB MDD (http://www.amazon-of-europe.com/en/biosphere-reserve/).

The title of the article is Sustainable tourism in the "European Amazon" – The lessons from the

Transboundary UNESCO Biosphere Reserve "Mura-Drava-Danube". A case of Serbia,

Croatia and Hungary. It is not possible to talk about the European Amazon on the basis of only three protected areas, not even the entire biosphere reserves of Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia.

I am sorry to regret you but some improvements to the work are needed. Good luck with your future work. Wish you all the best!

Reviewer 2 Report

I have reviewed this interesting and current study. However, I will give some recommendations.

Abstract

The objective should be improved, it is not an objective “to obtain significant results from the impact of this protected area”

Main results missing here

The methodology is not this "quantitative methodology, SPSS v.21" that is the computer tool. please add it

Please add who these results are for

INTRODUCTION

I would recommend better stating the research gap and better justifying the study.

Please improve the objectives of the study.

LITERATURE

You could add previous studies that have obtained similar or different dimensions. This topic has been investigated in other protected areas, what results have academics found. This is used to create the Discussion.

METHODOLOGY

Where does the questionnaire come from, what previous studies.

It is not clear that the statistical methods used only speak of Cronbach's Alpha, to measure reliability. What technique is required to obtain the dimensions because only the means are obtained and the Principal Components are not applied? I think that having the Likert scale would be ideal. And what technique did they use for the regression, will it be step by step or multiple or enter?

RESULTS:

What statistical technique was used to extract the dimensions, extracted from exploratory factor analysis? It is necessary to explain the technique to see if the values ​​obtained are adequate for the application of the model.

What type of regression did they use?

DISCUSSION

I would recommend adding discussion in relation to the data obtained and the previous findings.

Expand the contribution

CONCLUSIONS

Expand the theoretical and practical ideas

Future lines of research, Limitation of the study, could be expanded.

 The manuscript is very interesting, if you work on these extensions, it will surely be an excellent study.

Good luck dear colleagues.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors made an interesting investigation on the development of tourism between three countries (Serbia, Croatia and Hungary), which are designated as Mura-Dava-Danube transboundary UNESCO BRs. However, the manuscript needs to be improved, to make the study relevant in the recent scholarship on UNESCO BRs, and show the strong argument of the importance of this study.

In the Introduction and literature reviews, the authors did not provide information on the concept of BRs, how and why MAB program promotes tourism for BRs. How tourism relate with the Lima Action Plan and MAB Strategy. Why it is so necessary to make this study and develop sustainable tourism in the frames of the concept of the MAB Programme.

Results are mixed with the conclusions and discussion, and those statements must be moved into the discussion sector. The paper has obtained big number of results, however, discussion has a very little reflection of those results. I would suggest to separate discussion with the conclusion. Make some comparison on the obtained results between 3 countries and show the mechanism/idea/suggestion which can bring all three countries to function as one unit in the development of tourism inside UNESCO BRs.  Also, mention how this study can be used for other transboundary BRs.

Lines 296-306, are the repetition of the introduction.