engleski

THE ROLE OF SELF-REGULATORY INSTRUMENTS IN FOSTERING SUSTAINABLE RURAL TOURISM

Rural areas in the EU cover about half of the population and just over 80 percent of the EU's territory. They face many demographic, development, infrastructural, social and environmental challenges. The paper discusses development opportunities arising from the implementation of the concept of sustainable tourism. The research was focused on sustainability standards, as selfregulatory instruments that enable the systematic application of the principle of sustainability in business practice. The aim of this paper was to analyse the impact/importance of sustainability standards on the sustainable development of rural tourism. The research was focused on the evaluation of the Eco Domus program, intended for small tourist accommodation facilities with the aim of encouraging private renters to diversify and raise the quality of accommodation through the implementation of the principles of sustainable tourism. The program has been implemented in the Istria County since 2016. Owners of small tourist accommodation certified through the Eco Domus program were involved in the research. The methodology includes three pillars of sustainability: the impact on competitiveness, local community development and environmental protection. The preliminary results confirmed the research hypotheses that the implementation of sustainability standards for small tourism accommodation facilities in rural areas contributes to the reduction of environmental impacts of the facility and to environmental awareness of other business subjects in the local community and positively influence the environmental awareness of tourists and that sustainability standards contributes to the social sustainability of rural areas

rural-tourism, sustainable-development, sustainability-labels, competitiveness, community-development, Istria-county

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