engleski

The competitive eco-health tourism destination

Competitiveness of tourist destinations is a complex process, which primarily follow some basic starting points contained in the definition of tourism, health tourism, environmental sustainability and competitiveness in gneral. Tourism compromises of the activities of persons traveling to and staying in place outside their usual environment for leisure, business and other purposes(UNWTO). Health tourism is any kind of travel to make yourself or a member of your family healthier (Tabacchi, Cornell University's) Medical tourism is a direct result of globalization of healthcare. The medical tourism is the set of activities in which a person travels often long distance or across the border, to avail medical services with direct or indirect engagement in leisure, business or other purposes. Emergency or critical care travels should not be considered as medical tourism. (Jagyasi. Travel medicine is a multidisciplinary and complex approach to the tourists in the protection and improvement of his health while traveling and staying at the destination (before, during and after), which is based on almost all branches of medicine (Croatian National Institute of Public Health). Environmentally responsible tourism involves travel and visitation to relatively undisturbed natural areas with the object of enjoying, admiring, and studying the nature (the scenery, wild plants and animals), as well as any cultural aspect (both past and present) found in these areas, through a process which promotes conservation, has a low impact on the environment and on culture and favors the active and socio-economically beneficial involvement of local communities (Ceballos-Lascuráin). This paper is based on the main sources of Kvarner tourim offerim assessing: "Towards quality coastal tourism, IQM–Integrated Quality Management of coastal tourism destinations", EU level research, Enterprise Directorate General Tourism Unit, EU, Brussels – methodological approach (1999 - 2003, "Research of tourists’ satisfaction at the County Primorsko-Goranska //tourist destination KVARNER, Republic of Croatia", a I part of the research results on the project “Tourism Regionalization in Global Processes” , supported by Ministry of science, education and sport, No 0116003 (2004), "Master plan of tourism development in County Primorsko-Goranska//tourist destination KVARNER"(2005), "Research of tourists’ satisfaction at the County Primorsko-Goranska//tourist destination KVARNER, Republic of Croatia", a II part of research results on the project “Tourism Regionalization in Global Processes”, supported by Ministry of science, education and sport, No 0116003 (2007), Projekt "Assessment of environment care, in the Croatian tourism and hospitality industry"(2010), and "The results of the monitoring process of the Master plan of tourism development in County Primorsko-goranska//tourist destination KVARNER"(2011). The conclusion of this researche was, as follow: (1) urgently issue the missing legislation and strategic documents for all areas of health tourism (2) introduce the classification and standardization in health tourism offer, based on internationally accepted standards, best world practices and the historical experiences of the achieved level of development of health tourism in Croatia (3) install the system of certification and licensing of health tourism offer and health-eco tourism destination in Croatia (4) converted achieved comparative advantage into competitive advantage, to be successfully economic evaluate on the tourism market.

health tourism; health destination / resorts; reguations; wellness

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