engleski

Increasing (volun)tourism through social entrepreneurship – the case of Croatia

Social entrepreneurship is a relatively new topic of interest within the academic and the literature on it is limited. With the increase of interest in recent years from various interest groups the concept of social enterprise has become much more widespread. The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between social entrepreneurship and voluntourism, as one of the types of special interest tourism, and to examine the Croatian context in this regard. Voluntourism is a combination of volunteering and tourism. Unlike the rest of the European market, the Croatian development of voluntourism is still at the beginning. Voluntourism, according to the concept of sustainable community development, relate all the stakeholders of such development. Moreover, social entrepreneurship focusing on the creation of innovative products and procedures that would benefit the entire local community could become an important vehicle for sustainable development of destinations. This paper proposes that niche tourism products and more specifically, voluntourism projects, under the prism of social entrepreneurship, can become the means towards Croatian product diversification and long-term environmental, social and economic sustainability. Quantitative research was conducted and the methodology entails a case study approach that includes a thorough review of the related literature and of any existing Croatian sources of social entrepreneurship in voluntourism projects to determine the state of the Croatian industry in this regard. Results indicate that there are limited number of projects concerning social entrepreneurship in voluntourism in Croatia and also that discussed projects are not recognized or there is a lack of awareness of them. This study assessed the situation in Croatia and although it was comprehensive under conditions of limited data availability, it cannot speak to social entrepreneurship in voluntourism globally, but it can offer foundation for future research in this area.

social entrepreneurship, voluntourism, sustainability, case of Croatia

This article was presented at the 8th International OFEL Conference on Governance, Management and Entrepreneurship. From Corporations to Social Entrepreneurs: Exploring the Different Faces of Social Innovation (April 17th – 18th, 2020, Dubrovnik, Croatia, Governance Research and Development Centre CIRU), Zagreb, pp. 79-90