engleski

Analysis of the number of overnight stays of foreign tourists in the Republic of Croatia

International tourism has grown rapidly since the end of the Second World War, turning into an industry with the highest potential for assuring economic growth and development, especially for small countries. Although tourism and touristic activities in Republic of Croatia can be traced in 1850s, modern international touristic development has begun a hundred years later, while mass tourism became present in 1970s. Tourism today has also proven to be one of industries of great importance for the Republic of Croatia, which has greatly affected the economic growth and social development of this country. The importance of tourism industry for Croatian economy can best be explained by these statistical facts: the tourism sector participates with approximately 3% in the structure of the GDP, with revenues of about 18% in GDP. Croatia has also proven to be a very attractive tourist destination, being 8th most popular European destination, but it is also characterized by higher growth of the international tourist activity than of the growth of its tourism production. Since the economic development of the country depends heavily on revenues from tourism, there is a need for identifying long-term trends in foreign tourism demand and the relevant factors that affect it. Understanding those variables would allow making predictions about future trends of foreign tourism demand changes, which would provide adequate information for tourist policies and strategies of the Republic of Croatia to be based on. The aim of this paper is to analyze the changes in the number of overnight stays of the foreign tourists in Croatia, which is used as a measure of foreign tourism demand. The influence of the revenues of the tourists, prices in the destination and the accommodation capacity before and after the war in 1991 on tourism demand in Croatia was analyzed. The analysis was conducted for the period from 1971 to 2014. The results show that the significant determinants of foreign tourism demand in Croatia are revenues of tourists, prices in Croatia and accommodation facilities in Croatia. The above is in line with expectations and economic theory.

linear regression model ; OLS method ; foreign tourism demand ; development of tourism in Republic of Croatia

nije evidentirano