Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
motivations resulted in short seasons. In 1988,
59% of all overnight stays in Croatia were con-
centrated in July and August (61% at the coast),
81% (84%) between June and September, and
91% (93%) May to October (RZzS, 1989).
The interior and major part of Croatia -
about two-thirds by area and population - has
been barely exploited for tourism purposes.
Urban and cultural attractions exist mainly in
and around Zagreb, but also in the baroque
Vara
y
din, in Karlovac as a former centre of the
military border, Samobor, Osijek and Vinkovci,
as well as a rural popular culture in those
regions less affected by depopulation such
as Slavonia and North Croatia. A range of
spas, for example, at Vara
y
dinske Toplice and
Krapinske Toplice, complement natural phe-
nomena such as the waterfalls of the 16 Plitvice
lakes, karst phenomena in the Dinaric zone
such as caves, and in the Pannonian basin the
large floodplain woods of the Lonjsko polje and
the Kopa
E
ki rit with their wealth of birdlife.
However, it has proved difficult to diffuse tour-
ism into rural areas, not least because of poor
infrastructure. Inadequate rural roads are espe-
cially damaging to this type of tourism, since
many potential tourists are travelling by car.
Most other facilities are also usually absent,
from high-quality accommodation to desig-
nated walking paths, hiking trails, bicycle lanes,
attractive inns, park benches, shops and even-
ing entertainment (Jordan, 2000).
Yugoslavia had broken from the Soviet
bloc in 1948, and later employed its political
independence to introduce 'market socialism'
based on worker 'self-management' of 'socially
owned' enterprises. Agriculture was predo-
minantly privately managed and small-scale,
private sector development elsewhere was
endorsed, particularly in tourism. Given the
nature of demand, the tourism industry has
been structured primarily around the accommo-
dation sector. There have been two main cate-
gories of accommodation. The first is large,
publicly owned hotels catering to group book-
ings and representing 32% of the overall
accommodation capacity with average of 300
beds per facility (Hitrec, 2000). The second is
small-scale, family-run home-stay rentals, often
on a room-by-room basis.
This latter sector has been a dynamic area
of entrepreneurship with the emergence of
purpose-built tourist flats, apartments, and
bungalows, constructed from the proceeds of
families renting their own residential space.
These facilities have been aligned with upgra-
ded modern standards of hygiene and tech-
nical specifications, catering to the perceived
needs of Western consumers. As the state did
not provide incentives or strategic direction for
small-scale businesses, but primarily concen-
trated on bigger hotel investments in selected
areas of strategic importance, such as
Dubrovnik (Vukonic, 2005), the locally based
developments were organic and often chaotic.
The local entrepreneurial spirit is reflective of
the socio-cultural context we discuss in the last
part of the chapter.
Another group of significant entrepreneurs
were returning 'guest-workers' from Germany,
many of whom perceived tourism on the Adriatic
coast as a lucrative business opportunity to capi-
talize on their contacts and experiences acquired
working abroad. These individuals either built
tourist businesses on their own land inherited
from parents (Vukonic, 2005) or acquired land
from local landowners, which then provided fur-
ther capital impetus for locals to invest in their
properties and tourism businesses (Pearce, 1991,
p. 229). The significance of small-scale, local
involvement in tourism is illustrated in the fact
that by 1987, private accommodation providers
together with campsites comprised two-thirds of
the overall accommodation capacity in Croatia
(Institut za Turizam, 2005). The dual structure of
the accommodation sector was built around two
major market segments: package groups, and
independent travellers exemplified by the 'young
automobile society' (Gosar, 1999, p. 67).
Supplementing the accommodation sector
has been a plethora of cafes and restaurants,
mostly small-scale and under private owner-
ship, displaying the second most dynamic
domain of local tourism entrepreneurship. As a
consequence of tourism development, several
parallel processes were noticed and one of them
was abandonment of the traditional economic
activities of agriculture and fishing. Tourism
became almost a monoculture for many desti-
nations along the coast, with fishing boats used
for (mostly day) tours during summer months.
The Adriatic coastline and the islands became
dependent on the tourism economy, and this
was reflected in landscapes of increasingly large
