engleski

Tourism valorisation of lighthouses on Croatian islands and along the coast

On nowadays demanding tourism market Croatia wants to present itself not just as a country of classical “3S (sea, sun and sand)” tourism offer but also as a destination with great potential for the development of a more complex tourism product that would carry a development of high-quality sustainable tourism intended for an individual, more demanding, more educated, well-off and ecologically conscious tourist. “Robinson tourism”, in which tourists search isolation and peace in intact environment, is becoming a very popular type of tourism in the world. Considering stressful living conditions in ecologically more polluted cities with a low life quality, the above mentioned is not a surprise. In order to enrich island and coastal tourism offer in the early 2000 a process of tourism valorisation of lighthouses began mostly on secluded locations of Croatian islands and along the coast. Due to the automation of light-mechanisms on numerous Croatian lighthouses there are less and less lighthouse keepers that opened the possibility to renovate apartments for tourists where once a lighthouse keeper and his family lived. For lighthouse maintenance and its tourism conversion Plovput Ltd. from Split is in charge. The company started this rent a lighthouse project that doesn’t just bring profit but it also provides funds for reconstruction of these cultural heritage monuments built in the 19th century and the first part of 20th century. Today, due to this project 14 lighthouses have been integrated into this tourism offer. The main aim of this research is to define characteristics of Croatian lighthouses accommodation offer as well as main features of the structure and volume of a tourism flow in 2008.

lighthouses ; heritage ; “Robinson tourism” ; tourism offer ; tourism demand ; sustainable tourism ; Croatian islands

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