engleski

Managing tourism development process in Croatia: Can European Union accession help?

Although international tourism receipts, particularly in times of declining economic activity, have traditionally been used to stabilize the Croatian economy, most Croatian governments have treated tourism predominantly as a ‘gift from heaven’ and have not shown much interest to oversee its development. In 2015, the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report ranked the competitiveness of Croatian tourism 33th in the world. A survey of local authorities and tourism board managers revealed that Croatia’s rather poor tourism competitiveness stems from its under-par management of the tourism development process. As a result, various deficiencies in regulatory framework and/or overall business environment impede efficient implementation of tourism development strategic objectives at the destination level. Nevertheless, following Croatian accession to the European Union (EU), most of the constraints effecting Croatia’s tourism competitiveness could be effectively neutralized using the available EU structural and cohesion funds. However, this requires embarking upon a series of structural reforms, accompanied by an effective selection of projects suitable for EU funding, preparation of state of the art applications, and efficient implementation of the assigned funds.

Croatia, tourism competitiveness, development constraints, strategic management, EU accession

nije evidentirano