Evaluation of the possibilities of rural tourism development in Eastern Croatia

Based on numerous former researches of tourism development in Eastern Croatia, the aim of this paper is to critically analyze various development possibilities of this region. Also, the aim is to evaluate the potential types and special interest tourism, which have the biggest opportunities for future tourism development. The emphasis in this paper is put on various forms of rural tourism which could be developed jointly with urban tourism, by using a common strategy. Namely, urban tourism in Eastern Croatia has reached a certain development stage, especially in the biggest cities. Even though this area is rich in various attractive natural resources, alongside cultural and historical heritage of high value, the former tourism development was far behind other regions, especially Adriatic region. According to the official tourism data, this region (consisted out of five counties), disposes with modest 0.7% in the total number of Croatia commercial accommodation facilities, and its share of overnight stays 0.5%, which is far below the real potentials. In this paper the reasons of inadequatetourism development are analyzed, the critical evaluation of the development of the existing tourism capacities is provided and the potentials of future tourism development in this region are analyzed. By using the SWOT analysis, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the future urban and rural tourism development in Eastern Croatia are analyzed. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to critically analyze the former tourism development and to provide certain guidelines for its future development in this region. The main hypothesis in this paper is that rural tourism in Eastern Croatia can be successfully developed jointly with urban and other special interest tourism, and that itcould be economically sustainable. After the Republic of Croatia joins the EU, new market possibilities will occur, as well as the new sources of financing the development of various forms of rural and urban tourism. This is pointed out in the new Strategy of tourism development in Croatia, in which the rural tourism is treated as one of the strategic directions of tourism development in Croatia. This paper points out the authors’ understandings that rural tourism together with urban tourism can be the driver of the total tourism development in Eastern Croatia. For the purpose of this paper the method of deck research was used. All relevant scientific and professional papers by domestic and foreign authors related to the research topic were studied. The results were interpreted by using the methods of comparative analysis, economic analysis and the method of description.