ENHANCING NAUTICAL TOURISM OFFER BY CREATING AN INTEGRATED TOURISM PRODUCT

University of Split, Faculty of Economics, 21000 Split, Croatia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31410/ITEMA.2018.172

The subject of this paper is based on the theoretical elaboration of the offer that includes additional services in the charter segment of nautical tourism products in the Republic of Croatia. Nautical tourism is one of the most profitable and the most perspective tourism segments that are developed in Croatia, but within nautical tourism, apart from infrastructural requirements, there is a growing demand for a suitable superstructure that would further enrich the existing offer of additional services and increase competitiveness on the international nautical market. One of the possibilities to improve nautical tourism offer and thus the issue of seasonality represents the inclusion of various complementary tourism forms that have less expressed seasonality into an integrated nautical tourism product.

The aim of this paper is to define more precisely complementary forms of tourism that can be integrated with nautical tourism, i.e. to explain the current offer of additional services of nautical tourism in the Republic of Croatia, and to explore boaters’ attitudes on the new offer of additional services for boaters who sail along the Croatian Adriatic.

The empirical part of the immediate research is related to the views of foreign boaters on the offer of additional services during their stay on a vessel in the Adriatic Sea, as well as the attitudes and perception of the profession on possibilities to enhance the current service by integrating other complementary forms into nautical tourism.

The authors have carried out a research whether enjoying natural beauties and activities such as swimming and sailing are enough for boaters or the boaters while sailing want to extend their activities to other forms of tourism such as cultural tourism, and whether enhancing the offer of additional services would have an impact on the increase of boaters’ consumption. The survey was carried out by a questionnaire. An additional goal has been to point out to unused potentials such as cultural heritage, gastronomy, sport, recreation and other activities that can be integrated with nautical tourism. The seasonality effect would be reduced by developing an integrated nautical product and the position among competitors on the European and world market would be enhanced. The contribution of work is manifested through the views and opinions of boaters who sailed and stayed in the Croatian part of the Adriatic in 2017. This study has proved that foreign boaters are very interested in cultural values and other activities as elements of nautical offer, but they are currently all poorly presented to the boaters so the boaters aren’t familiar with cultural and other potentials that Croatian coast has. It is obvious that boaters are willing to increase their expenses while sailing to expand their experience and take part in additional activities other than the usual ones.  It has been proven that their integration into a nautical product would further strengthen the attractiveness of itineraries and routes boaters take and at the same time boaters’ satisfaction with Croatia as the nautical destination. Therefore, this paper presents new knowledge on boaters’ attitudes and satisfaction regarding the subject of the research.