Developing Hunting Tourism – A New Perspective Of Achieving Competitiveness Of Rural Croatia

Croatia is the owner of a larger part of hunting grounds, which are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management, and are most frequently leased by various hunting societies or individuals who organize commercial hunting. In order to enable its successful positioning on the tourist market, as a destination of hunting tourism, which respects high standards of ecology and sustainability, Croatia needs to establish cooperation between the Ministry of tourism and the Ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management, and coordinate its activities with the needs of the Croatian economy, with a goal of achieving a competitive tourist product, and stronger forming of a hunting tourism brand. A proposition of standards for development of hunting tourism of Croatia is given in the paper. The purpose of the paper is to point out on unexploited resources for a quality development of hunting tourism of rural Croatia, and give guidelines for its further development. The goal of the paper is to give a presentation of characteristics of hunting tourism and its development in rural Croatia, to point out basic economic aspects of hunting tourism development, and also the limiting factors of future development of hunting tourism in rural Croatia, in order to achieve competitive advantage of this type of tourist offer in relation to the competitive tourist destinations.