engleski

Creating an eco-tourism product in a rural areas based on tourism sustainability indicators

COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a number of fundamental changes (shifts) in the global tourism market, one of most important being increased demand for different tourism activities in the rural areas. Consequently, rural areas are under increased pressure induced by growing tourism demand, and it is becoming more important to measure long term sustainability of tourism products being developed in order to preserve protected areas, as the most sensitive elements of rural areas. Within the DestiMED PLUS (Interreg MED) project, one of the main goals is to promote integrated coastal tourism planning in which regional policy makers will implement holistic policies that link tourism with conservation in practice. Simplified, through synergy and capacity building of local stakeholders, an ecotourism market-ready product has been developed, based on evaluation through given sets of indicators, which enable the improvement of the package itself. As part of the development of the package, as many as two impartial audits and two tests were conducted, during which indicators in the field of environmental sustainability, socio-economic sustainability, management, and conservation were continuously collected. In Croatia, the NATURA 2000 area of Cres-Lošinj (Marine Area) was selected as a pilot area. The project identified the need to strengthen governance frameworks in Croatia, but also throughout the Mediterranean, with an emphasis on strengthening the capacity of NATURA 2000 protected areas to make eco-tourism based on a local approach a success. This can be achieved by strengthening cross-sectoral local and regional policies, providing integrated planning strategies (tourism and conservation) and providing sta

Conservation ; ecotourism ; indicators ; NATURA 2000 ; sustainability

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