Adaptation of Rural Tourism Offer of the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union Trends
Adaptation of Rural Tourism Offer of the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union Trends

Summary/Abstract: Tourism represents a mass movement of people which makes strong impact on many destinations, traditional or emerging ones. Traditional destinations are influenced in a different way than emerging ones, when introducing new types of tourism. They need to change the structure and content of the offer, use additional point of access to markets, and basically influence the very nature of its tourism. Emerging destinations are in position to review the best practices and adopt the most appropriate strategies for tourism development, having regard to sustainable types of tourism, such as rural tourism. Contemporary trends on today’s tourist market are characterised by daily drastic shifts in tourist offer development. Modern tourists are inclined towards traditional vacationing in seaside destinations. However, there is greater demand for quality and specific rural tourism services. Specific rural tourism offer bases its specific quality on rich tradition of the country, rich gastronomic- enological offer specific for the country, acquiring new knowledge through learning about old customs, traditions, specific qualities of the country and the region visited, etc. The focus of this paper is to asses the need for expansion of rural tourism in Republic of Croatia, as traditional (mainly „sun and sea“) destination and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as emerging tourism destination. Review of the best practices in EU member states and assessing the structure of the tourism in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina will result in recommendations and practical guidance for quality improvement, ways to use the EU financial instruments (funds and framework programmes) for (rural) tourism development.

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