engleski

Ecotourism development perspective of unrecognized protected areas: the case of Regional park Mura-Drava

The protected areas in the 21st century record continuous growth, since they can satisfy diverse desires, needs and expectations of contemporary and extremely fragmented tourist demand. However, individually speaking, visitations greatly depend on the category, resource attractiveness, additional offer and other authentic features of the protected area. In Croatia, an additional aggravating circumstance of certain protected areas from the aspect of international interest in visiting is the lack of recognition of the value of a particular category of protection. The consequence of that is incompatibility of such categories with the categories of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Regional Park is one of the protected areas that, as such, has not categorized by the IUCN, so there is no recognisability, neither value as globally known and uniquely categorized National Parks. The purpose of this paper is to point out the potentials of this protected area, which can be valorised and exploited for tourism purposes by strengthening the recognisability of Regional Parks on the wider international market. The goal of the paper is to investigate and identify the main activities of the regional tourist boards and public institutions operating in the area of the Mura-Drava Regional Park in the direction of promotion and strengthening of the international recognition of the protected area. The theoretical part of the paper will provide an overview of current research in the field of ecotourism in protected areas, with a focus on the development potential and recognisability of protected areas by using standard scientific methods (method of analysis and synthesis, historical and descriptive method etc.). In the empirical part of the paper will be presented the results of the primary research conducted on a suitable sample of the regional tourist boards directors and the directors of regional Public institutions of protected areas operating in the area of the Mura-Drava Regional Park. Accordingly, the research will be conducted in the area of the five counties in Continental Croatia on which the Regional Park spreads. With the primary purpose of obtaining relevant data, the interview method will be used for the purposes of this paper. The findings will enable the definition of the main guidelines for improving the marketing activities of the Regional Park Mura-Drava as a destination, with the emphasis on strengthening the international recognition and image creation of Regional parks.

ecotourism, protected areas, ecotourism supply, recognisability and visitation of protected areas, Regional Park Mura-Drava.

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