Management of sustainable tourism destination through stakeholder cooperation/Upravljanje odrzivom turistickom destinacijom temeljem suradnje dionika

Destination presents a set of different organizations and individuals who can work towards realising the same objectives or their objectives can be diametrically opposed. Harmonisation of such objectives in a unique strategic development of the entire destination is usually taken over by destination management organization (DMO) established to accomplish the mentioned objective. The opposed interests in such a system as complex as tourism result in the degradation of space and society in which tourism takes place. Therefore sustainable development in tourism represents a primary concept of development today. Tourism is a fast growing phenomenon and its sustainable development represents a necessity. Besides the positive economic outputs of tourism, we should also mention its negative impact on the particular destination, the environmental degradation to some extent, as well as socio-economic elements of local community. Accordingly, multi-stakeholder concept in destination management should include all interest and influential groups in tourism development planning. Such integrated destination management connects all stakeholders independent from influence or interest powers to participate directly or indirectly in creating and implementing the quality tourism development. This concept's basic function is connecting and coordinating stakeholders with different interests within a tourism destination, in order to create quality product and a recognizable destination image, and to achieve a long-term sustainable competitiveness on the market. However, based on the stakeholder approach, the most emphasized issue in sustainable tourism development concept is the government that holds a key role in socio-economic development. In this paper, we analysed current involvement of stakeholders in Zadar County tourism development and examined their interest in future involvement in sustainable destination development. Based on the analysis of focus group research results, that included 87 interested stakeholders from all segments of tourist industry, public services, local administration and self-government, and in comparison with the results of tourism demand research on the non-random sample of 1,697 tourists, we draw conclusions on the level of stakeholder involvement and cooperation in creating the sustainable destination. The aim of this paper is to offer recommendations for harmonizing development directions of the sustainable destination in order to reduce differences among stakeholders. Keywords: Tourism destination management, Sustainable tourism destination, Stakeholders Destinacija predstavlja skupinu razlicitih organizacija i pojedinaca, koje mogu suradivati na temelju teznje istim ciljevima, ali njihovi ciljevi mogu biti i dijametralno razliciti. Harmonizacija ciljeva u jedinstvenom strateskom razvoju destinacije obicno spada u podrucje rada organizacije za destinacijski menadzment, koja se i uspostavlja u tu svrhu. Suprotstavljeni interesi, u kompleksnom turistickom sustavu, rezultiraju degradacijom drustva i prostora u kojima se turizam odvija. Stoga je odrzivi razvoj primarni koncept razvoja suvremenog turizma. Sam je turizam fenomen koji brzo raste, sto je dodatni razlog za nuznost odrzivog razvoja. Uz pozitivni ekonomski ucinak, turizam donosi i negativne efekte za destinaciju, koji ukljucuju ekoloske posljedice, kao i negativno djelovanje na socio-ekonomske aspekte zajednice. U tom smislu, u koncept destinacijskog menadzmenta, koji ukljucuje visestruke dionike, potrebno je ukljuciti sve interesne skupine, relevantne za planiranje razvoja turizma. Tako integriran destinacijski menadzment povezuje sve dionike, neovisno o njihovom utjecaju ili interesu te im omogucuje direktno (ili indirektno) sudjelovanje u kreiranju kvalitetnog razvoja turizma. Temeljna funkcija ovog pristupa odnosi se na povezivanje i koordinaciju dionika s razlicitim interesima unutar turisticke destinacije, s ciljem stvaranja kvalitetnog proizvoda te prepoznatljivog imidza destinacije, kao i odrzive dugorocne destinacijske konkurentnosti. Medutim, unutar koncepta suradnje dionika u odrzivom turizmu, najvise se naglasava znacaj vlasti kao temeljnog cimbenika socio-ekonomskog razvoja. U ovom se radu analizira postojece ukljucivanje dionika u razvoj turizma Zadarske zupanije. Na temelju analize fokusnih skupina, koje su ukljucivale 87 zainteresiranih dionika iz svih segmenata turisticke industrije, javnih usluga, lokalne uprave i samouprave, kao i u usporedbi s namjernim uzorkom 1.697 turista, iznose se zakljucci o razini ukljucivanja dionika u razvoj te stvaranje odrzivosti destinacije. Cilj je rada pruziti preporuke za harmonizaciju smjera odrzivosti destinacije i smanjivanje razlika izmedu dionika.
UDC 338.48:005.1 1. INTRODUCTION Tourism destination is a wider integrated space, which builds its tourism integrity on a concept of cumulative attractions which, due to the impression they offer and [...]