engleski

Classification and categorisation of basic tourism destinations as a prerequisite for their protection

Basic tourism destination is more than a tourism place defined as a final destination of a tourist trip. It is a wider functional tourism space consisting of one or more tourist places that have direct influence on the quality of the entire tourist experience of these places. Basic tourism destination cannot be further subdivided into smaller tourism destinations while through addition of basic primary destinations the higher order tourism destination could be formed, such as regional, national or entire continent may become a tourism destination. Development potential of the basic tourism destination primarily depends on its tourism attraction base and environmental characteristics. Tourism attraction base of a tourism destination is comprised of its existing and potential tourism attractions that can range from local to international significance. Environmental characteristics of a tourism destination are healthy environment, interesting landmark formations and quality spatial organisation of tourism places and its surroundings. Degradation and damage of existing or potential tourism attractions reduces development potential of a tourism destination. The same effect also has reduction of quality of their environmental characteristics. Thus, decay of the elements of tourism attraction base as well as of the environment could, in the long term, results in a major reduction of the initially estimated tourism development potential of a destination. Croatia currently witnesses degradation of many potentially first-class tourism destinations, such as Bol on the island of Brac and Opatia in the northern Adriatic, and similar fate is already faced by destinations such as the island of Mljet, Elafity and Brijuni archipelagos, Bjelolasica mountain and the historical heritage site of Trakošćan. Apart from the first-class tourism destinations, for tourism development in Croatia it is important to preserve potential tourist attractions or potential tourism destinations. The example of the spa-resort Varaždin Toplice best illustrates this problem. With construction of highway Zagreb &#8211 ; Budapest just few hundred meters from the Varaždin Toplice, the highway connection and two tunnels nearby, the quality of the surroundings of this spa resort will be degraded and, subsequently, categorisation of this tourism destination is likely to be lowered, resulting in the loss of the health-tourism destination status according to the European Union&#8217 ; s environmental standards for a health resort. However, by no means Croatia is an exception, as such and similar problems are already noticed in other countries with well-developed tourism. In general, theoretical interest for tourism destinations is mostly pertaining to the marketing issues, while its development aspect has been mostly neglected by theory. In particular, methods and instruments for identification, evaluation and protection of destinations&#8217 ; tourism attraction base and for classification, categori-sation and protection of basic tourism destination remain poorly developed. The aim of this paper is to present method of estimating the value of potential and existing tourism attractions, based on the classification of tourism attractions (Kušen 1999) for the purpose of estimating the value of tourism attraction base. This is departure from traditional classification of tourism attractions into cultural and natural with eventual subdivision, given that the classification proposed here contains sixteen categories: 1) geological characteristics of the environment ; 2) climate ; 3) water ; 4) flora ; 5) fauna ; 6) protected natural heritage ; 7) protected cultural heritage ; 8) culture of work and lifestyle ; 9) famous people and historical events ; 10) events in general ; 11) cultural and religious institutions ; 12) health resorts ; 13) sport and recreation facilities ; 14) tourism paths, trails and roads ; 15) attractions for attractions and 16) tourism para-attractions (transit service zones, motive for business travel, professional education, health facilities and similar). Also, instrument is developed for estimating marketing and development potential of an individual tourism attraction primarily in order to categorise individual tourism attraction (ranging from local to international), individual seasonality patterns and carrying capacity. Likewise, a database of tourism attraction is developed in the form of catalogues and maps of tourism attractions. Such instrument is essential in estimating marketing and development value of tourism destinations, their categorisation and protection measures needed to maintain their classification. Classification of a primary tourism destination mostly depends on the characteristics of its resources, quality of environment, characteristics and category of the tourism places that constitute a tourism destination and on development orientation of a destination. As a rule, categorisation of the basic tourism destination is mostly dependent on the categorisation of the tourism places within destination boundaries. Although Croatia currently does not have qualitative, functional-developmental but only quantitative, economic-technical classification of tourism places, the century-old practice of the Croatian tourism to use qualitative categorisation should not be forgotten. This classification divides tourism places into 1) health tourism resorts (spas, seaside and mountain resorts) ; 2) holiday resorts ; 3) others (mostly urban) tourism places. From such categorisation a market orientation of each place or destination could be determined as well as its sensitivity to environmental degradation. In this respect the most sensitive are health tourism places and the least sensitive are urban tourism places. Categorisation of the basic tourism destination assumes, within given categories, further classification into subcategories (ie. five point star categorisation), in regards to its optimal developmental orientation and based on all available tourism resources (tourism attractions as fundamental tourism resources, accommodation and catering facilities, communal infrastructure and other facilities essential for the quality of life together with other indirect tourism resources). Such categorisation, conducted by experts, can protect important resources from a degradation or unsuitable use in the long term what would, in turn, ensure that a destination remains in a given category. However, this can be ensured only if such categorisation is an integral part of tourism strategic development plans and physical and urban plans. Thus, for example, potential premier tourism destinations need to be identified and protected at the national level and they need to become a part of the national strategy of spatial planning. For example, has the basic tourism destination of Bol on the island of Brac, being categorised as a five-star destination, tourism and environmental protection of the Zlatni Rat beach area would have been much stricter and thus degradation of this area with the inappropriate hotel developments would have been prevented on legal grounds.

tourism toursm destination; classification and categorisation; Croatia

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