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THE ROLE OF SOCIO-CULTURAL PRINCIPLES AND INDICATORS OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN CROATIAN NATIONAL PARKS

The number of tourists is increasing worldwide. Often this could lead to degradation of natural and socio-cultural resources in a tourist destination if tourism is not planned carefully. Especially fragile are protected areas (PAs) which are recording the increased tourist visitation as well. Among PAs, national parks (NPs) record the highest tourist attendance. That in-focus implies the importance of long-term planning tourism development, based on sustainability. However, it is not possible to implement a unique model for all tourist destinations due to their diversity by natural and social features. The purpose of this paper is to explore the principles of sustainability as well to underline the importance of their equal implementation in long- term tourism development. This paper focuses on the implementation the socio-cultural sustainable principles and indicators in future sustainable development which is often neglected in tourism plans. Secondary data have been used to analyse scientific literature in the field of implementation principles and indicators of sustainable tourism development in NPs also the data from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics have been analysed. Primary data have been used to research attitudes of the local population in NPs toward future tourism development their areas of living. The findings showed that on the international level exist plenty of documents and researches in the field of the implementation principles of sustainability in tourism. However, documents and researches of indicators of sustainability are poorly represented. Therefore, due to that, their implementation is poorly implemented in the sustainable tourism development practice. Withal, doesn’t exist special methodology or indicators which could be implemented in the NPs. The paper stressed out the importance of successfully implementing all principles and indicators of sustainable tourism development, where the attitude of the local population is essential in that process.

sustainable tourism development, sustainable tourism principles, sustainable tourism indicators, socio-cultural principles, socio-cultural indicators, national parks Croatia

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