engleski

Tourism Development in Rural Tourism Areas by Using Public-Private Partnerships

Over different periods of time, rural areas have been a very attractive place for people to spend their leisure time and live a cozy life, as the countryside landscape and unspoilt nature are an ideal setting that thrills and captivates the urban population of different age groups. For some people, rural environment means the nature where they can find their stability, freedom and balance, whereas it provides other people with the opportunity to put their strength and self-confidence to the test, so they prefer real nature and unspoilt wilderness where they can do extreme sports, taste the local food and drinks, and communicate with the local population. Collaboration between the public and private sectors has only recently been developing into a specific and widely applicable form and method of social development optimization. The recent period of economic turbulences has been characterized by many mergers, acquisitions and joint-ventures. Hence, it can be concluded that the future of a sustainable rural tourism development is based precisely on mutual cooperation of all participants in the market i.e. it can be achieved by merging the strengths of the public and private sectors. The available literature provides several studies with a similar topic, but there is no specific research that takes into consideration the latest trends and opportunities for the use of the European Union funds in coordination with the public and private sectors for the purpose of tourism development in rural areas. The main contribution of this paper is the proving of the hypothesis that the mutual cooperation of the public and private sectors, along with the possibility of co-financing projects from the European funds, in the long-term may influence the tourism development in a rural area, while at the same time using the neglected public real estate properties for rural tourism, from which the private sector may also derive benefit. The paper describes a similar model applied by a small Istrian municipality, the Municipality of Tinjan, but the same or similar model can also be implemented in other rural environments, as well as in other economic fields in a rural area.

Public-private partnership ; rural tourism area ; tourism development in rural areas

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