engleski

The Safety of Tourists : A Factor of Tourism Competitiveness and Sustainable Development in the Republic of Croatia

This paper underlines the importance of security as a factor shaping tourism system from the outside, and as a component of the tourism system that changes its structure from within. Safety impacts upon image and competitiveness of tourism destinations and it represents a component of sustainable tourism development. Research has shown that Croatia, like traditionally tourist country, holds overall image which is assessed as poorer than image of it's competitors, whereas safety as an element of Croatia's tourism offer is assessed as better than country's competitors. Therefore, the proposal is to utilize safety as both, a basis for creation of Croatia's image as tourism destination, and source of country's competitive advantage. The research has also revealed that Croatia as a country traditionally oriented at tourism intends to develop tourism on the bases of sustainable development. In Croatia there are many Institutions, which have been established and coordinated with goal of enhancing general condition of safety, including safety of tourists, and it has been established that efficiency of safety protection system is increasing. Nevertheless, sectoral level of safety protection of tourists does not contribute sufficiently to the level of tourism safety in Croatia and it is estimated that additional improvements are needed at that level in order to have safety become strategic factor of sustainable tourism development in Croatia.

tourism; safety; competitive advantage; sustainable development; Croatia

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