Preliminary communication

SPORTS TOURISM OFFER IN CROATIA

Mato Bartoluci ; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business, Croatia
Sanela Škorić ; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Kinesiology
Zrinka Starešinić ; Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Economics

Abstract

Both tourism and sport are massive socio-economic phenomena of modern society. In 2014, UNWTO registered over 1 billion international tourist arrivals in the world – a number that is still on the rise. At the same time, there are, according to some assessments, over 600 million active participants in sport. A significant share of sports activities is conducted through tourism. Therefore, sport and tourism are interrelated phenomena that generate numerous functions and significant economic effects. The basic aim of this paper is to analyse the development of sports tourism in Croatia. For that purpose, both primary and secondary data are used. Desk research of Internet sites of town tourist boards was conducted to analyse the sports tourism off er. In addition, a questionnaire was developed for experts in the area of (sports) tourism development. The basic hypothesis of this paper is that sports tourism in Croatia should be developed as an integral tourist product. The study has shown that the five most frequently mentioned sports activities are cycling, walking, tennis, fi shing and horseback riding. However, the Internet site analysis showed a somewhat different situation, and found cycling, fishing, hunting, mountaineering and tennis to be the most frequently mentioned sporting activities. The vast majority of
interviewed destinations, i.e. 84% of them, incorporated sport into the tourism offer when promoting their destination, but only as a supplement to their main attraction. If we add to this the fact that the motive of sport ranked fourth on the scale of motives for visiting a particular destination and was chosen by 38% of interviewed destinations, it seems clear that the sport offer is found to be an integral part of the tourism offer in general.

Keywords

tourism; sports tourism; integral tourism product

Hrčak ID:

170723

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/170723

Publication date:

15.12.2016.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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