Perception of a recreational voucher as an innovation and sustainable tool of tourism development

The submitted contribution deals with the current status and view of the recreational vouchers as a tourism support tool from the point of view of employees who are entitled to use this option. The aim of the study was to find out, describe, and evaluate the perception of recreational vouchers as a tool of sustainable domestic tourism by employees who used this option and compare them with the perception of those who have not done it yet. Overall, 188 respondents took part in the questionnaire research held in person and online, in the period from December 2022 to February 2023. The methodology of the research to verify the perception of respondents included the use of Shapiro-Wilk normality test, Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and Spearman correlation coefficient, which were evaluated in Software Gretl. The results of the research brought a positive opinion even from the public who did not have the opportunity to use them, but the statistical verification of the hypotheses did not show a different perception of the voucher among the respondents and their selected characteristics (age and place of residence). On the other hand, a positive opinion about the recreational voucher is confirmed, from which it can be concluded that the voucher can be perceived as an important and necessary tool oriented toward the development of sustainable domestic tourism in Slovakia.