TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AND REGIONAL DYNAMICS IN THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA, 2010-2025
Anisa SULIMANI, Shkurte LUMA-OSMANI, Hatibe DEARI-ZEQIRI, Artina KAMBERI
Abstract
This paper examines tourism dynamics in the Republic of North Macedonia from 2010 to 2025 using official tourism and catering data. The analysis focuses on tourist arrivals, overnight stays, seasonality, regional distribution, source markets, accommodation structure and basic predictive modelling. The dataset was cleaned before analysis, and pre-existing summary rows were excluded to avoid double counting. Missing August and September 2024 records in the working monthly file were imputed with historical monthly averages by region and tourist type, because these months belong to the peak tourist season and their omission would create an artificial decline. The results show long-term growth, a sharp interruption in 2020 and a strong recovery by 2025. Demand remains concentrated in July and August, the Southwest Region dominates overnight stays, and Skopje is one of the main urban tourism centers. Source-market results show the importance of Turkey and neighboring countries, while accommodation results confirm the role of private rentals and individual hotel categories. Decision Tree classification outperformed KNN, while linear regression produced a positive but moderate baseline trend. The findings support more balanced regional planning, stronger off-season tourism products and a diversified market strategy.
Pages: 11 - 22