engleski

Tourism on Croatian Islands - Pride and Prejudice

The development of tourism on Croatian Islands started in the second half of the 20th century and until today it became dominant and in some cases the only viable economic activity. Impact of tourism can be seen on almost all islands but there are significant differences regarding the number of tourists and accommodation units that are proportional with the size of the islands and their proximity to the mainland. Bigger islands, bridged islands and the ones closer to mainland have record higher numbers of arrivals and accommodation units. Tourism also influenced land use and landscape changes. Former agricultural zones are nowadays abandoned and natural reforestation took place. Simultaneously, the built-up area (touristic infrastructure) has increased several times. At the moment most Croatian Islands are facing serious demographic crisis. That is the reason why tourism is expected to become a cohesion force that could keep islanders on the islands providing better living conditions and higher living standard. This paper is putting in correlation tourism and socio-economic changes on Zadar Islands as a case study area. Based on statistical data analyses, survey and field research it can be concluded that the tourism has not yet reversed negative socio-economic process on Islands although in some cases it has positive impact on population and economy.

tourism ; Zadar Islands ; socio-economic changes ; demographic crisis

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