engleski

Integrated aproach to tourist experineces – an imperative for branding and compettive advantages for detinations in Continental Croatia

Tourism as the fastest growing "industry" in the world is faced with a growing challenge of increased competition. In accordance with the contemporary market conditions, it is necessary to turn all the comparative advantages into competitive ones to the uttermost in order to create, maintain or promote a good competitive position in the tourist market. Unlike tourism on the Croatian coast, touristic offer in continental Croatia (with the exclusion of Zagreb) is still unrecognizable by the majority of potential tourists. Market recognition and the raise in the competitiveness of tourist destinations in continental Croatia would contribute to achieving a great number of development principles emphasized in the Strategy for the Tourism development of the Republic of Croatia until 2020, such as the development of tourism in the whole country, which is more than sun and sea as well as the development of the creative tourism with authentic tourist experiences, which will contribute to decreasing the seasonality. Precisely the continental Croatia, which is still an undiscovered part of the Croatian tourism story possesses a great potential for market positioning as the original "life style" destination of a unique experience based on tradition, cultural and natural heritage as well as the lifestyle of its inhabitants. The recent trends on the tourist demand market indicate that it is necessary to create such integrated and original tourism products which will provide the tourists with a memorable holiday experience. Therefore, the main task which stands before the destination management is to connect all the components of tourist attractiveness, all providers of tourist services and all stakeholders which are crucial for creating a recognizable integral tourism product. In this paper, the authors, using the method of meta-analysis of relevant literature in fields such as experience economy, an integrated tourism product management and IQM in tourist destinations, sought to emphasize the need for an innovative approach in the development of tourist destinations based not only on the functional classification of tourist attractiveness and a way to create recognizable integral tourism products, but also on the need to connect highly fragmented links in the tourism value chain, primarily to deliver an unforgettable holiday experience for a tourist. A justification of this concise analysis is visible based on the fact that in most tourist destinations in the eastern Croatia the integrated quality management of the tourist destination for a tourism product is not being applied. The authors have come to this conclusion after conducting in-depth interviews with the directors of Tourist Board offices on the selected sample from the area of Virovitica-Podravina, Osijek-Baranja, Požega- Slavonija, Bjelovar-Bilogora and Koprivnica- Križevci County. Moreover, an empirical research has been conducted for the purpose of this work, which was based on a survey conducted on a sample of 20 owners of restaurants and resorts in the aforementioned area in connection with the originality of gastronomic and wine offer, a use of local ingredients and, in general, the association of stakeholders of tourist offer within the destinations to create authentic and integral tourism products. The results obtained in the research and the theoretical analysis and synthesis will be used as a guideline for a more innovative way of managing tourist destinations in continental Croatia with a goal of creating a recognizable tourist offer and a better competitive position in the tourism market.

integrated tourism product, experience economy, IQM, tourist destination management

Zbornik se referira u Web of Science, EBSCOhost, RePec, EconPapers, Socionet.