The research results of charter companies in Croatia

Demand for Croatia as a nautical country constantly maintains the upward trend. The reason for this is the fact that Croatia is on the way to the EU integration as a future equal member state. This fact significantly contributes to Croatia’s openness to the generating market in both economical and in terms of tourism. Nautical tourism of Croatia is profitable which has been recognized by foreign entrepreneurs by directing their fleets to the Adriatic and developing successful and today frequently leading charter companies. The paper defines the charter activity and points out its characteristics. The purpose of the paper is to research, understand and set forth the attitudes of nautical tourists within the charter domain as an activity with the highest annual growth rate in nautical tourism. Methodology used in this paper was questionnaire based on three sections of questions. First section of questions refers to structure of charter companies, the second section of questions refers to the features of demand and season of 2009, and the third section of the questionnaire shows the expectations of charter companies for the season of 2010. Further on, the authors have additionally researched Slovenian charter companies and made the correlation of Slovenian and Croatian charter market.The research in this paper is descriptive, conducted on a one-time basis and on an intentionally selected sample. Based on the results, appropriate conclusions and attitudes have been made also incorporating specific views regarding the quality improvement of a nautical tourist product and charter offer.