Program Croatia 365 in a Function Of Stronger Market Positioning of the Continental Part of Croatia on Foreign Tourism Markets

Abstract

Program Croatia 365 in a Function Of Stronger Market Positioning of the Continental Part of Croatia on Foreign Tourism Markets The pilot project of the program “Croatia 365” was started by The Ministry of Tourism in September 2014, with the primary objective of a better use of resources during the pre- and postseason and showing Croatia not only as “a sun and sea“ tourist destination, but also as a destination with tourism opportunities throughout the year. The pilot project, which was undertaken in the postseason in 2014 and had a total value of 4.8 million HRK, included 22 destinations, of which 7 continental, with the main activities carried out through offline and online advertising in key tourism markets and through web subpages of the Croatian Tourist Board with content based on 6 key tourism products. Taking into the consideration that all of the continental PPS destinations except Plitivicka jezera, according to Regulations on the periods of season, preseason, postseason and afterseason in tourist municipalities and cities (NN 92/09, NN 146/13, NN 35/14), have been classified in the category of the cities and municipalities where the main tourist season lasts the whole year, the goal of carried out primary research was to determine the actual effects produced by the the undertaken measures in the framework of the project “Croatia 365” in 6 continental Croatian PPS destinations, as well as to examine whether the eventual increase in tourism traffic in these destinations during the period from 1 October 2014 to 31 March 2015 had been result of the activities of PPS destination management or of the activities that hadbeen undertaken at the level of individual tourist municipalities and cities networked in the PPS destinations. The goal of the work is to analyze and to synthetize results of the primary research, meaning finding out if the directors of tourist boards in tourist municipalities and cities networked in the PPS continental Croatian destinations where tourist season lasts the whole year are satisfied with the application of the program “Croatia 365” in their areas, as well as finding out if Croatia created an adequate legal and institutional frameworks for the effective operation of the PPS destinations. In the context of applied methodology it was given a review of the scientific literature dealing with the concept of “tourist destination“ and “management of tourist destination”; the process of connecting