Croatia Participation and Leadership in Tourism Organizations Essay

Tourism, as explained by the World Tourism Organization, is the practice of traveling and staying in places that are outside the normal habitats for leisure, business as well as other purposes. It is commonly linked to global travel but also includes traveling to different places in the same country (Mandabach & Lee, 2018). Over the years, it has been a focus for multidisciplinary research as it is a complex phenomenon and a powerful tool in driving economies. Tourism contributes to three priority goals of any economy and developing countries by generating income, creating employment and increasing foreign exchange earnings. However, for it to make meaningful impacts, it must be tailored and organized in a sustainable manner by involving several parties who can be regarded as stakeholders both locally and internationally (Saftic & Luk, 2011). However, involving stakeholders in tourism management could at times prove challenging going by the fact that it's a complex system of social-economic structures which are dynamic and delicate.

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While the collaboration or association of various local, regional and global stakeholders, either private or public has been investigated, the aspects of specific roles that they play in tourist projects have remained under-investigated. Extreme competitive tourism markets have sired the need for tourism destinations to accept stakeholder engagement approach to overcome competition. More complexities develop as heritage and nature tourism development investments differ in several aspects from the traditional hotel developments. It calls for more increased accessibility to attraction sites and facilities, and a mode of development that is sensitive to the natural habitats and historical areas. For tourism to flourish to advance, coordination and cooperation among the different stakeholders are important. In each collaboration, there are risks and benefits for every stakeholder in the tourism industry and certain tradeoffs. Some of the benefits that destinations firms accrue from engaging stakeholders may include but not limited to synergies, economies of scale, lower seasonality, and promotional activities planned by skilled people. With Croatia, a leading global tourist destination, being used as a sample, this paper will focus on a comprehensive analysis of its participation in World Tourism Organizations and other multi-country tourism organizations. Some of the tourism stakeholders in Croatia include the Ministry of Tourism, the Croatian National Tourist Board, Its Parliamentary Committee of Tourism and the Croatian Travel Agencies.

Despite being a major global destination in the tourism industry, the participation of Croatia has been minimal in multi-country Tourism Organizations and even in the participation of world tourism events and happenings. The country has no major examples where regional and international stakeholders contribute to her foundation of tourist attractions. Among the main three drivers of global tourism including international tourism expenditures, a number of international arrivals and international tourism receipts, Croatia has played a tune to none in collaboration with any regional organizations (Ilban & Yildirim, 2016). This could be explained by the fact that as a country, Croatia tourism cluster is derived from the historic centuries and its current realities. They are planted in the pride of Croatians in their nation, its culture, society and culture and are grounded in the firm belief that the treasures of tourism. Again, the big agenda of the Croatian tourism is creating wealth for its citizens, and they are only there to be influenced locally. As it stands today, lack of communication, as well as synergy, is prevalent among the different stakeholders taking part in development, growth and advancement process of Croatian tourism.

The planning and management of tourism have currently been more centralized against the World Tourism Organization's standards. Without the incorporation of a clear regulation body, it is easier for governments' objectives to be pre-determined. Even though the process of decentralizing government functions such as planning has lately started, it has so far resulted in major misinterpretations as well as misuse at the native level. Furthermore, the struggle between the locals and the different foreign interest groups over the management and oversight of resources has repeatedly been overlooked by both the local and central authorities. Therefore we have a situation in Croatian tourist attraction sites and destinations where the indigenous population is not entirely empowered in a real sense. Participation is restricted to the privileged and influential elites in the community, leading to consideration of their interests only rather than those of the community at large.

In my opinion, implementation of the stakeholders' approach standard in destination administration in Croatia is at an unsatisfactory level. It is important that the Ministry of Tourism conducts research and involve the multi-country stakeholders, who could offer assistance in the development of tourism destination administration model and try to decrease central government's control out of Croatia tourism management. Research should be carried out related to the discovering, finding and defining likely models for the establishment of efficient destination organization in Croatia. The existence of communal tourism systems should not only be well-thought-out as existing supporting infrastructures, but also the inadequacy of fulfillment of tasks set before the organization of destination management. Furthermore, likelihoods of development of public and private corporations within the outline of the destination administration model should be well researched, encompassing particular emphasis on the involvement of the stakeholders and native interest groups, as equal partakers in tourism destination administration.

Due to lack of tangible involvement of global stakeholders in the management of its policy formulation, Croatia has for the longest time suffered seasonality problems in its tourism. It stems from sea and sun which is the main product, adverse quality, and structure of tourism and concentrating more in the coastal region. If they had engaged multinational stakeholders, the tourism industry would continuously learn of this challenge and alleviates itself. Sustainable management would require actions that are directed to cutting seasonality by raising the quality of tourism offered focus on different varieties of tourism and diversify the tourism product that is not related to summer period. For example, they could have the introduction of urban tourism, excursion routes, and wine road among many others.

Conclusion

There is a need for increased participation of Croatia to global stakeholders to raise its stakes higher than they currently enjoy. Reviewing policies and information structures and following international standards would greatly boost tourism in Croatia by developing key experiences and products, better planning regulations and adopt globally accepted services. The World Tourism Organization should also be stricter to its members who flout its policies by institutionalizing global punishments to offenders. This would allow local tourism managers redefine their missions and task in a manner that would enable measurement and controls over implementation. Meaningful engagement with multinational countries would lead to sound policy and regulations that depoliticize Croatia's tourism governing system. Successful tourism is defined by successful managers who formulate and implement useful policies that are in line with the standards set by global players. Croatia must agree to rub shoulders with other players to improve its tourism benefits.

References

Ilban, M., & Yildirim, H. H. (2016). Determination of Tourism Activities of the World's Best Tourism Destinations Using the Multi-criteria Decision-Making Method. Journal of Cogent Soacial Sciences.

Mandabach, K. H., & Lee, T. H. (2018). Sustainable Tourism. Journal of Tourism and Hospitality, Vol 7(1).

Saftic, D., & Luk, N. (2011, March 25). Stakeholder Approach in Tourism Management: Implication in Croatian Tourism. Retrieved April 21, 2018, from https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/507719.Stakeholder_approach_in_tourism_management.pdf