Acta turistica nova, Vol. 5 No. 2, 2011.
Original scientific paper
Is the island of Krk missing the boat ?
Ivan Fistrić
Abstract
In 2005 an ecologically based waste
management system was introduced on the island
of Krk, the first and the only system of that kind
in Croatia. That is a big contribution to the
sustainable development of the island of Krk, since
tourism destinations and islands are especially
sensitive to the global waste issue. However, this
paper deals with the question is the island of Krk
missing an opportunity to use this achievement
in promotion of tourism. Trends of growing
tourist environmental awareness and more rigid
selection of destinations are mentioned in the
literature, which implies there is a market that
could react positively to a organised promotion of
the island of Krk as a destination that cares about
the environment. The slogan “Eco island Krk –
the cleanest part of Croatia” responds well to the
challenge of making “garbage” sound attractive.
However, the respondents (N=81) of the survey
made on the island of Krk showed weak familiarity
with the slogan and with the environmental
character of the island of Krk. Considering that
half of the tourists on the island of Krk come from
countries with developed cultures of responsible
waste management, they might recognize the
ecological waste management system as an added value. The conclusion of the paper is that the
island of Krk is missing the boat, since there is a
good feature, a good slogan and an efficient but
unused promotional channel – the internet.
The paper is based on a postgraduate dissertation
Is the island of Krk missing the boat? The case of the
island with the best waste management system in
Croatia,but do the tourists care or know about it?,
written and submitted in 2010 as a part of the
course Business Strategy and the Environment at
Birkbeck College, University of London.
Keywords
sustainable development; sustainable tourism; waste management; promotion; marketing
Hrčak ID:
107041
URI
Publication date:
16.10.2011.
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