Year 6, No. 1, June 2013, issn 2335-4194
Academica Turistica
Tourism & Innovation Journal Revija za turizem in inovativnost
Academica Turistica
Tourism & Innovation Journal - Revija za turizem in inovativnost Year 6, No. 1, June 2013, issn 2335-4194
3 Responsible Tourism before'Responsible Tourism'? Some Historical Antecedents of Current Concerns and Conflicts
John K. Walton
17 Competitiveness and Responsibility of Tourist Destinations
Gorazd Sedmak and Tina Kociper
25 An Empirical Research on the Ecological Orientation of Low Season Visitors to Portorož
Helena Nemec Rudež and Petra Zabukovec Baruca
32 Quality of Life of Indianapolis Residents: The Role of Cultural Tourism and a Sense of Community
Carina King, Sotiris Hji-Avgoustis, Jinmoo Heo, and Inheok Lee
39 Measuring Performance in the Hospitality Sector: Financial vs. Statistical Data
Tanja Planinc, Štefan Bojnec, and Gordana Ivankovič
49 Local Community Perceptions of Tourism Impacts on The Slovenian Coast
Ksenija Vodeb in Zorana Medarič
61 The Pressure on the Coastal Area as a Factor of Sustainability of Croatian Tourism
Zoran Klarič
71 The Challenges for Responsible Recreation in the Protected Area of Triglav National Park: The Case of Mountain Bikers
Miha Kozorog and Saša Poljak Istenič
81 Abstracts in Slovene - Povzetki v slovenščini
85 Instructions for Authors
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issN 1855-3303 (printed) issN 2335-4194 (online)
Responsible Tourism before 'Responsible Tourism'? Some Historical Antecedents of Current Concerns and Conflicts
John K. Walton
Ikerbasque, Instituta Valentin de Foronda, University ofthe Basque Country, Spain john_walton@ehu.es
This article discusses the historical antecedents of what is now called 'responsible tourism,' taking into account the relationship between this concept and 'sustainable tourism.' It uses a comparative case-study methodology to identify and analyse precursors of 'responsible tourism' from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. Case studies cover the English Lake District, the English coastal resort of Whitby, the Spanish spa resort of Mondariz Balneario, the development of 'social tourism' in Mar del Plata (Argentina), and the Atlantic island of Lanzarote (Canary Islands). Each of the illustrative examples engages with different, but overlapping, aspects of 'responsible tourism,' and the article concludes that (despite the perils inherent in looking for the historical roots of a current concept) the approach taken is viable and conducive to a better understanding of the issues, not least because each case displayed its own distinctive complications and cross-currents. The final, extended case-study, which examines the role of the artist Cesar Manrique in the rise of Lanzarote as a tourist destination between the 1950s and the 1990s, provides a particularly satisfying illustration of how the key elements of 'responsible tourism' might take root and develop under the right cultural and political circumstances, long before the concept had actually been articulated, and offer a genuine opportunity for policymakers to learn from historical example.
Keywords: responsible tourism; history; destinations; literary tourism; coastal tourism; spa resorts
Introduction
'Responsible tourism' as an articulated body of ideas and recommendations is a product of the twenty-first century, with firmly identifiable immediate roots in the late twentieth century. The concept has, however, a much longer prehistory in the mosaic of practices in destination resorts and national parks, in urban governance, and in aspects of the development of 'social tourism.' Such antecedents, while invariably embodying their own contradictions and never fully anticipating (still less articulating) the extensive agenda set out
in August 2002 by the Cape Town Declaration, can be found in the policies and activities of local and national governments, ngos, voluntary organisations, and even private companies (Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism, 2002).
There is considerable overlap between what might be considered 'responsible' and 'sustainable' tourism; the former acknowledges its debt to the latter, whose assumptions underpinned the philosophy articulated at Cape Town. The first issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism appeared as long ago as 1993, and it
now produces eight issues per year, demonstrating the fecundity of the concept for academics, opinion formers and policymakers, although the extent and nature of its impact 'on the ground' may be more debatable. Indeed, 'responsible tourism' can be regarded as a proposal to enable and reinforce sustainable tourism by providing a framework for focusing on specific, concrete outcomes in particular places. The focus on destinations means that 'responsible tourism' has more to do with impacts on localities, and on host societies, than on tourist practices as such, although given the interactive nature of the processes concerned this is more a matter of angle of vision than of separate compartments. There is an extensive body of past practice which might reasonably be identified with or assimilated to the 'responsible tourism' label; these antecedents can be identified in places throughout most of the complex trajectory of tourism in the modern world, from at least the mid-eighteenth century onwards. This should not be surprising, given that tourism as an industry requires the replication of satisfying experiences (including hospitality relationships) in attractive surroundings, so that operating 'sustain-ably' and 'responsibly' should be in the interests of service providers with a long-term commitment to their enterprises.
The Cape Town Declaration grew out of the Cape Town Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations, and insisted that 'tourism can only be managed for sustainability at the destination level' (Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism, 2002). This article embraces that assertion, while recognising: that all tourism involves travel (with enormous environmental implications, especially carbon footprints for travellers by air, but with direct impacts on life on the ground at destinations); that it necessarily entails negotiation between locals and outsiders (brokered by intermediaries); that destinations are therefore anything but autonomous; that one of the purposes of the Cape Town Declaration was to empower local people who had been marginalised from decision-making processes and shut out by 'leakage' from the fruits of their labours; and that the complex interactions of'glo-calisation' are central to the understanding of contemporary tourism (Salazar, 2010). It explores questions of
'responsible tourism' in the past through brief introductory historical case studies of the management and development of five specific destinations: the English Lake District; the English coastal resort of Whitby; the Spanish mineral springs resort of Mondariz Baln-eario; the development of 'social tourism' in Mar del Plata, Argentina; and the distinctive experience of the island of Lanzarote (Canary Islands), which is developed further as the key post-Second World War example. The case studies, taken together, cover nearly a quarter of a millennium, from the mid-eighteenth to the late twentieth centuries, and take the analysis from the early tourist activities of self-consciously cultured elites to the kind of post-Second World War 'mass tourism' (an unduly simplistic label) which is associated with package tours and jets (Walton, 2009). This does not purport to be a representative sample of experiences: it is geographically skewed and is dominated by Western European and colonial settler societies, reflecting the current imbalance of available historical research. It does, however, give due weight to the importance of domestic tourism within nation-states, which may have different characteristics from the international tourist traffic flows which dominate the literature (Singh, 2009).
None of the examples presented below is unprob-lematic, as we might expect when looking for the imagined roots of a current concept, thereby incurring the risk of falling into anachronism. Some historians would regard a search for traces of 'responsible tourism before responsible tourism,' avant la lettre, as philosophically untenable and ipso facto illegitimate. I prefer not to be so pedantic, and I also believe that it is possible, indeed important, to learn from history. This point needs to be made at the outset, because (as in so many aspects of tourism studies) a commitment to the understanding of historical processes has thus far been conspicuous by its absence from the literature that is specifically directed at responsible tourism as a theme (and difficult to find in the understandably policy-orientated world of sustainable tourism); but to act responsibly, in a specific local setting, must always entail the achievement of a respectful apprehension of conflict, tension and community in the past, not least in relation to the history of tourism provision in itself.
Each case-study entails the analysis of conflict and compromise between contending interests, which have sometimes involved alternative visions of'responsibility;' and problems arise from the very limited availability of historical studies of tourism labour forces, whether local or migrant, not least in the specific case-study locations (Walton, 2012b). Nevertheless, the opening out of a historical dimension to these questions will shed further comparative light on an important concept. We begin by introducing the key issues and concepts, and the ways in which they might be interrogated in the past.
'Responsible' and 'Sustainable' Tourism: Definitions and Contexts
The Cape Town Declaration of 2002 is an ambitious document. It divides the concept of'responsible tourism' into economic, social and environmental spheres, although there is inevitably a good deal of overlap and interaction between these categories. It seeks to promote respect for the local people, environments and economic systems in which tourism takes place, advocating the effective involvement of local people in decision-making and governance, and the development of culturally aware, positive interaction between locals and tourists or, in language it does not use, hosts and guests. It advocates collective engagement in conservation, and it specifically urges the promotion of access and enjoyment for the physically challenged and other excluded groups. In economic terms, it urges that the 'leakage' of the economic benefits of tourism beyond the area should be kept to a minimum and supports the locally-based small, medium-sized and 'micro' businesses that make such a significant contribution to tourism economies across the globe. It is at pains to safeguard cultural and ecological distinc-tiveness and diversity, while protecting local people (especially children) against sexual exploitation, and generally safeguarding the vulnerable against the consequences of the untrammelled machinations of the market. In so doing, it builds on and extends concepts of sustainable tourism, while trying to make them more enforceable, with considerable emphasis on a strong culture of genuine consensus-building, impact assessment and audit. In principle, respon-
sible tourism has the potential, however remote, to become sustainable tourism with teeth (Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism, 2002; Lashley & Lee-Ross, 2000).
These are virtuous but demanding prescriptions, especially for corporations and hedge funds whose sole concern is to extract maximum 'shareholder value' in the short term in the form of rent derived from the exploitation of an asset. It is good to see ethics, long-term planning, responsive impact assessment and genuine asset management, collaboratively conceived, being given such weight. The focus on the destination is a refreshing reminder that while capital as well as tourists may be mobile, restless and fickle, not all workforces are flexible and migrant. Destinations are places and have inhabitants with families. They also have histories, which form and inform their cultures.
Responsible tourism, like sustainable tourism, undermines assumptions about the need for never-ending growth and for the competitive extraction of maximum profits in the short run. It is therefore capable of providing a critical perspective of crucial importance, as it challenges a current deadly disease which has infected economic orthodoxy and policy formulation, in ways that are toxic for the future of humanity on a planet which has finite resources and suffers from a prevailing culture of empowering greed by slashing, burning and moving on. The famous Tourism Area Life Cycle model, whose logic is to reduce destinations to the status of a product (or, now, a brand) with a life cycle, assumes as natural that destinations will pass through all of its evolutionary stages to a point of over-development, saturation and crisis (Butler, 2006). We need to redefine success in tourist destinations in terms of carefully managed, non-disruptive development to an ecologically sound and socially equitable steady state, which can then be responsibly sustained, halting the 'cycle' at the point at which it provides satisfaction without doing damage, although this perspective does not help in dealing with the many destinations which have passed that point and are in need of rehabilitation. Taking this step necessarily entails recognising the necessity for intervention to restrain the damaging tendencies of competitive market
forces, and it is difficult to see a successful future for responsible tourism without a committed programme of proactive planning and regulation by clean governments in dialogue with local people and business interests. This is, to say the least, a demanding agenda, especially when dealing with multinational corporations and institutionally corrupt, sometimes klepto-cratic governments. It cuts to the heart of current discontents.
Responsible tourism, like its close relative (and, in some senses, progenitor) sustainable tourism, needs to recognise the need for historical understandings of its concerns. It cannot afford to be merely present-minded. Occasional articles on this theme in tourism studies journals carry a historical dimension (Lambert, 2008), but 'history' is more often a key descriptive ingredient in 'heritage tourism' packages than a route to understanding antecedents, process and issues over time. The enduringly influential Tourism Area Life Cycle, whose agenda is highly relevant to sustainable and responsible tourism, ought to have a strong historical component, because it purports to analyse change over time as destinations pass through the imagined stages of the model; but in practice, with a few recent exceptions (for example Gale and Botterill, 2005), an understanding of historical approaches and procedures is conspicuous by its absence, and the stages of the model have tended to be 'read off' without research-based substantiation (Butler, 2006; Walton, 2009). Van der Duim's generally excellent book Tourismscapes, a valuable contribution to tourism studies at the strategic meeting point between anthropology, cultural geography and sociology, is typical of most such work (that of John Urry included) in displaying a 'tin ear' for history. In three pages, he provides a highly schematic tabulated summary of three 'waves' of international environmental concern, beginning in 1900,1970 and the late 1980s. If he had read any serious history, he would have become aware of much earlier conflicts and developments, of changes and contestation in the history of environmental thought, and of complexities and cross-currents rendering any attempt at such reductive simplification risible. It is curious that so many academics (and others) in tourism studies still treat
history with an absent-minded contempt that they would never dream of applying to any other discipline (Van der Duim, 2005, pp. 154-157; Walton, 2011; Walton, 2009).
'Social tourism,' intervention by the state or by voluntary organisations for the provision or enablement of access to holiday and tourism facilities to those who would be unable to enjoy them without assistance, is another dimension of responsible tourism, partially but not fully addressed in the Cape Town Declaration. There are significant historical dimensions to this phenomenon, and it also has a more recent guise of trying to channel the tourism activities of the well-off and mobile into empowering host communities and enhancing their quality of life (Minnaert, Maitland, & Miller, 2006; Walton, 2012a, 2012b).
History and Historians
As the core ideas of responsible tourism focus on furthering and promoting the understanding and cooperative management of the environment, society and culture of tourist destinations, the development of historical understanding is best pursued through case studies, or rather (given constraints of space) illustrative vignettes, which can elucidate aspects of the key issues in specific settings. The strong emergence of the productive sub-discipline of environmental history provides an essential context here, although it rarely engages directly with tourism as such (Mosley, 2010). It seldom uses the terminology of sustainable or responsible tourism, but where it engages with tourism-related issues, the relevance of its approaches becomes evident. Indeed, there are far too many relevant studies to discuss, or even cite, here, and what follows will necessarily be selective. There are few thematic book-length surveys over wide areas and long periods, but (for example) Hassan's study of seaside tourism, health and bathing water quality in nineteenth- and twentieth century Britain provides an excellent early example of the potential contribution of environmental history to understandings of the development of sustainabil-ity and responsibility in tourism. It pays due attention to politics and the role of municipal and national government, to environmental aesthetics and to relationships between public health and applied science,
and makes the valuable transferable point that campaigns over (for example) bathing water quality were more likely to be focused on the consumer rights of surfers and swimmers as particular interest-groups, than on principled general concern about the sustainable use of resources (Hassan, 2003, p. 195). Mackenzie's work on hunting, conservation and access to and use of land and natural resources in the British Empire is about tourism (and the problems of sustainabil-ity, including relationships between governments and stakeholders) without actually saying so, pre-dating as it did the emergence of discourses of sustainability and responsibility, and illustrating what can be missed when research is based on mechanical word searches (Mackenzie, 1988).
There are also useful monographs based on intensive research on specific places, set in context. They include Lambert's book on the Cairngorms in Scotland, where a contested ski resort development raised a range of questions which were relevant to 'responsible tourism,' including conflicts between rival users of a cherished environment (Lambert, 2001); Garner's study of Arcachon, in south-western France, where the rise of coastal tourism had to negotiate its relationships with an established fishing community and a distinctive, fragile ecosystem; (Garner, 2005) and Chiang's examination of the fraught relationships between sardine fisheries and coastal tourism in Monterey, California, including debates over whether to commemorate the legacy of the sardine fishery as heritage tourism or to obliterate it as part of a rejected past (Chiang, 2008; Palumbi & Sotlea, 2011).
Alongside these more ambitious, contextualised historical ventures into what is undoubtedly the study of responsible tourism (and its discontents), even though the relevant vocabularies are not employed, there is a growing array of shorter, more narrowly-focused studies in article form, especially in environmental history journals. A few examples are noted here. Themes include conflicts between tourism and industrial uses, in destination settings which tend to identify tourism with support for rather than challenges to environmental sustainability; industrial employment is set against the less tangible, less measurable opportunities provided by tourism, with its demand
for seasonal, part-time, predominantly female labour. Here, questions of 'responsibility' are more focused on the values attached to alternative economic strategies and projected outcomes than on the activities of the tourism sector itself (Bryan, 2011; McFarlane, 2012). However, tourism itself often threatens the environments whose desirability made them into destinations. Australian contributions on the impact of foreshore development on sand dune ecosystems in Queensland, and of coral collection on the Great Barrier Reef over two centuries, have examined problems of environmental degradation, and responses to them. 'Responsibility' has had to be negotiated, here as elsewhere, and requires the informed consent both of tourists and of those who cater for them (Dana-her, 2005; Daley and Griggs, 2008). The perceived needs of certain kinds of tourist experience have also led to the exclusion of aboriginal peoples from national parks in North America and, for example, from hunting grounds in parts of Africa and India, while in Australia Uluru/Ayers Rock has become a contested site and symbol between Native Australian people and White Australians at the 'heart of Australia,' with important tourism-related dimensions to the conflicts and negotiations. Although such exclusions have often been justified on the grounds of conservation of species and habitat, or protection of 'wilderness,' such justifications may provide a cloak of sustainability and responsibility behind which less reputable motives of commercial tourism promotion and social exclusion may lurk (Binneman & Niemi, 2006; Barnes, 2010; Mackenzie, 1988). Historical studies provide many such examples of the ambiguities and cross-currents in the rhetoric, practices and conflicts of tourism, but they tend to be hidden from the view of researchers who are interested in 'sustainable' and 'responsible' tourism as categories, because they usually deploy different keywords and a distinct vocabulary. There is a clear danger of work on these themes being impoverished not only by neglect of the historical literature, but also by researchers confining their reference base to ghettoes of those who share their conventional vocabulary, assumptions and cultures of citation, buying into the damagingly distorting world of impact factors and citation indices (Archambault & Lariviere, 2009).
Another half-hidden variation on the themes of sustainable and responsible tourism is the example of the National Trust, the enormous (more than four million members) English voluntary organisation which has ownership 'in perpetuity' of very extensive tracts of attractive and evocative landscape and coastline, and historic houses, which makes it a particularly powerful player in heritage and outdoor tourism, while giving it a 'reputation for power' and considerable political influence. Since its small beginnings in the mid-1890s, it has grown first steadily, then (after the Second World War) spectacularly; its unique commitment to permanent preservation, which was designed to move its properties out of the threatening turmoil of the market place without recourse to direct state intervention, has given it an almost unique commitment to sustainability. However, this in turn requires it to act as a practitioner of responsible tourism: to look to its financial stability, to sustain strong relationships with the members who fund it (which entails delicate negotiation over emotive and divisive issues such as whether fox-hunting should be allowed on Trust properties), to expand its membership numbers and social base, to consider the implications of sourcing and pricing policies for its shops and restaurants, to negotiate carefully with the tenants of its farms and the inhabitants of its local communities (not least about nature conservation and biodiversity issues), and to respect the interests and concerns of its neighbours. Here is a particularly interesting, and important, case-study in the management of responsible tourism, although identified generically with a national organisation rather than an individual destination; but, here as elsewhere, this terminology is not actually used in the existing literature (Walton, 1996; Waterson, 1999; Murphy, 2002; Hall, 2003).
Case Studies
It is appropriate that the English Lake District, which has been strongly associated with the National Trust since the organisation's origins, should provide the first of the brief case studies of destinations, which will now be offered to illustrate the role of historical research in understanding responsible tourism. It was one of the earliest tourist destinations in the modern
world, but it is not well known outside Anglophone cultures, because its distinctive identity since the early nineteenth century has been as a 'literary landscape' associated with the writings of a group of English poets, among whom William Wordsworth has the highest profile. In recent years, it has also attracted significant numbers of Japanese tourists, but here again the core attraction is literary: Beatrix Potter, who became a Lake District farmer and landowner, was the author of anthropomorphic animal stories, which are used to teach introductory English to many Japanese students. The Lake District has become a candidate for unesco World Heritage Site status, under a 'cultural landscape' rubric which was invented for it, and since the late eighteenth century it has been a cockpit of conflict between conservationists and votaries of silent appreciation and contemplation of landscape and ambience, on one hand, and advocates of recreational and sporting development, sometimes associated with a perceived (and positive) democratisation of tourism, on the other (Walton & O'Neill, 2004; Walton & Wood, 2013).
The Lake District emerged as a destination for tourists in the mid-eighteenth century, as new positive assessments of upland landscapes placed it on the itineraries of affluent travellers who were following the fashion for the 'discovery of Britain.' Its identity as a 'literary landscape' was reinforced and complemented when Wordsworth became a strong and sustained advocate of preserving the landscape and the existing rural social arrangements, which he romanticised as a 'republic of shepherds and agriculturists,' small farmers and proprietors who were the custodians of the landscape. The most popular vehicle for this agenda was a guide book, which was first published in 1810, became well known through its expanded fifth edition in 1835, and has remained in print. Wordsworth encouraged tourists, but only the kind that were able to make the effort and find the time to explore and contemplate. He understood that at a time of economic and social flux, and of transport innovation (he campaigned to keep the new railways out of the central Lake District), pressures for development would challenge his idealised vision of bucolic landscape and simple hospitality. His aim, as Garrett ex-
presses it, was to save the landscape both for and from the people, so there were elements of elitism, exclu-siveness and paternalism in his values. Nevertheless, the power of the Wordsworth agenda to mobilise support was enduring, reasserted in the later nineteenth century by the art critic, polymath, social reformer and alternative political economist John Ruskin and by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, one of the founders of the National Trust; the same issues remain prominent in the case for unesco World Heritage Site designation. The Wordsworth agenda has been controversial throughout its existence, but there is no doubt that he and his followers deserve to be understood and assessed, critically, as pioneers of 'responsible tourism' (Wordsworth, 1835; Bate, 1991; Whyte, 2000; Garrett, 2008, p. 182; Walton & Wood, 2013).
TheexampleofWhitby, onthecoastofNorth Yorkshire in north-eastern England, is equally complex. Whitby was an old fishing and commercial port, but it was also one of the first modern locations for commercial sea-bathing, beginning in the early eighteenth century. During the second half of the nineteenth century, it developed a split but integrated personality. A conventional Victorian seaside resort was developed on the western cliffs, but the harbour area in the valley of the River Esk became attractive to tourists, often bearing paintbrush or camera, in search of the quaint, the picturesque, a fashionable 'other,' among the jumble of cottages and paraphernalia of the fishing industry, while the trade ofthe harbour generated interest of its own. These were not separate tourism markets, but overlapped, as the health and recreation tourism of the beach and cliffs coexisted with the romantic untidiness and suspect sanitation of the harbour zone. This was a satisfyingly sustainable economy, achieved by accident rather than design, not least because tourism dovetailed with other economic activities not only seasonally, but on a daily basis. Such arrangements were common to many seaports which developed coastal resort functions.
However, by the 1930s a new paradigm of public health and planning was emerging, driven by central government; and 'Old Whitby' was threatened with wholesale demolition as an unsightly health hazard, especially to its own inhabitants. Defenders soon ral-
lied, combining arguments based on historic preservation and artistic value with an appeal to economic self-interest: if the quaint streets of 'Old Whitby' were to be replaced by neat new houses, standardised and geometrically planned, it would look just like everywhere else in sanitised modern Britain, and the artists, photographers and tourists seeking the 'picturesque' would seek surviving alternatives elsewhere. Public health criteria would be sustained, but the town's economic equilibrium would be threatened. The harbour dwellers would be the beneficiaries of responsible, ameliorating intervention, but not all of them wanted it, although no effective consultation was ever reported; the redevelopment would also threaten the sustainability of a branch of the tourist industry that was firmly embedded in the town's economy. The 'responsible' line to take was not clear, with conflicting versions of what might (in effect) constitute 'responsibility,' and opinions were polarised. The Second World War interrupted the demolition programme, which had been delayed and diluted by the conflict; when it was restarted in the mid-1950s, it was soon halted again by changing policies and circumstances, as the surviving little houses became desirable 'second homes' or holiday lets, their value increased and government improvement grants became available. Meanwhile, the local authority had controversially constructed expensive replacement housing, which tried to replicate the informality and interest of the originals, and many visitors were unable to tell the difference. What, under these shifting circumstances, might constitute a 'responsible' tourism policy, in relation to other aspects of the local economy, society and traditions; and for whom? (Walton, 2005; Borsay & Walton, 2011)
The third example, Mondariz Balneario, is a resort business which helped to develop the economy of its surrounding area, rather than a town which had to adjust to a new identity as a destination resort. It was a family-run mineral springs or 'spa' resort which came to dominate the economy of a predominantly rural district in Galicia, near the Portuguese border in western Spain, from its origins in 1873, and was consciously managed with what would now be seen as sustainabil-ity and social responsibility in view, not least because
the owners clearly recognised that this was in the interests of their business and brand, which embraced a substantial mineral water bottling trade for international distribution. Mondariz Balneario developed an influential national and international visiting public in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when (despite its enduring inconvenience of access) it became one ofthe most fashionable summer watering-places of Spain and Portugal. It brought together fashionable, political, literary and scientific figures (including prominent women writers) from Britain and Portugal as well as Madrid and Galicia while acting as a nursery for the early development of Galician nationalism. These developments also highlighted the role of two generations of members of the Peinador family, who ran the balneario from its effective inception in 1873 until it became a limited company in 1932, in creating a distinctive, high-profile identity for the resort while stimulating innovations in transport, advertising and publishing which were aimed at consolidating and extending the external visibility and reach of their establishment. The Peinador brothers, who managed the growth and heyday of the resort, were eager to become as self-sufficient as possible in local produce, campaigned for more effective policing and local services, stimulated local transport improvements, and encouraged the growth of complementary tourism-related businesses run by local people (Del Castillo Campos, 1992; Hooper, 2012).
This could be viewed as a model of sustainable and responsible tourism, looking to the benign economic development of a poor area which had suffered a high volume of emigration, generating extensive employment opportunities for local families (including many women), and promoting beneficial external interest in the district. The delights of local scenery were assiduously marketed, while local customs and architecture were celebrated. Nevertheless, there were crosscurrents. The Peinador brothers' efforts to take beneficial ownership of one of the key local mineral springs led to a bitter thirty-year lawsuit against the local authority, which argued that they were, in effect, privatising a public resource by legal sleight of hand. Local political networks, with connections in the national capital, were mobilised on either side. Conflict between
the business and the local authority became endemic, as the balneario proprietors complained of fiscal discrimination against their business; in 1925, they were allowed to secede to form their own municipality, the smallest in Spain. The local authority developed its own rival water-bottling plant. Finally, the founding brothers were unable to sustain the family business model through a new generation, and the whole enterprise was torn apart by the Spanish Civil War, to be resurrected under new auspices at the end of the twentieth century. Thus was an apparent exercise in responsible tourism moderated by sustained local conflict, accusations of fraudulent abstraction of resources, and the lack of a sustained succession strategy when the powerful personalities of the founders were removed from the equation (Del Castillo Campos, 1992).
As suggested above, 'social tourism' might be regarded as potentially yet another face of 'responsible tourism.' The concept embraces not only the disabled, but also families who would otherwise be excluded from tourist activities by poverty, and especially the children of poor and other working-class families. It has been prominent, under various auspices, in many European countries, especially since the 1930s. In the River Plate region of South America, especially in Argentina, its development was particularly strongly promoted, by government, large employers and trade unions, across the middle decades of the twentieth century, with roots in the authoritarian conservative governmentsofthe1930sbutfullyfloweringafter1946, under the Peron governments. Indeed, Elisa Pastoriza argues convincingly that in Argentina, in particular, 'social tourism' promoted by national and provincial governments, trade unions and charitable foundations became such an accepted and established fact of life that Argentinians became unaware that theirs was a unique case. This entailed organisational and financial support for journeys and accommodation, while children's holiday 'colonies' were established, and established hotels were bought and converted to 'social tourism' uses. The most dramatic and symbolic dimension of these developments was in the coastal resort of Mar del Plata, which had been represented since the early twentieth century as both a national melting-pot and an elite playground, and now found
that hitherto socially exclusive areas such as the Playa Bristol and its casino were opened out to the lower-middle and working classes. Mar del Plata became an accessible celebration of national unity and egalitarian pride. This might be regarded as a political version of the use of responsible tourism for democratic nation-building purposes, but the older elites preferred to go elsewhere, and the overall Peronist project always had fierce opponents, drawn from all parts of the political spectrum. Moreover, concern for accessibility and growth did not always spill over into a sense of environmental responsibility, while laws of property development, which were intended to extend the availability of seaside flats, led to speculative construction and the tearing down of attractive older neighbourhoods. Here, too, there were costs to set against the benefits (Pastoriza, 2011).
Cesar Manrique and the Case of Lanzarote
As we bring the analysis into the age of the jet aircraft, the charter flight and the airborne package holiday, the case of Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, is of particular interest. This might indeed be regarded as the essential, inspiring historical basis on which ideas about sustainable and responsible tourism can be grounded in space, time and process, and juxtaposed with the problems they face 'on the ground' even when promoted by a charismatic local figure. On this volcanic island near the African coast, from the 1960s until his death in 1992 (and beyond the grave), the artist Cesar Manrique inspired and developed what Van der Duim plausibly represents as a distinctive kind of tourism which coincided with the new pressures of the last third of the twentieth century, and which might retrospectively be labelled as 'sustainable,' and certainly as 'responsible.' Indeed, Van der Duim uses the example of Manrique's 'legacy' to introduce the argument of his stimulating monograph on 'Tourismscapes' (Van der Duim, 2005, pp. 15-16).
A more developed interpretation of Manrique's importance is provided by Fernando Sabate's excellent short presentation, which establishes his pioneering role in several aspects of sustainable and responsible tourism. He argues that, 'What Manrique projected (and in large part achieved) constitutes an example of
what is now known as sustainable territorial development,' a generation before the Brundtland Report. As Sabate suggests, Manrique was already working artistically with Lanzarote's spectacular volcanic natural features before tourism became paramount to the island's economy. He was looking to the future, beginning work on his Los Jameos artistic project in 1966, while the volcanic site at Timanfaya was already open to the public in 1970, before its designation as a national park, at a time when the annual number of foreign visitor arrivals was only just over 20,000. Manrique aimed to offer visitors more than just 'sun and beach,' wanting them to value the island's natural and cultural assets while rehabilitating and enhancing 'degraded spaces' like the old quarry site on which he created the Jardin de Cactus. He sought to educate by example and demonstration, and constructed itineraries across the island, linking the sites of interaction between nature and culture that constituted his large-scale artistic works, and sharing tourism revenue generation across the interior. He insisted that tourism must pay to sustain the landscapes it enjoyed, controversially introducing access charges at Timanfaya, and using them to generate social funds to counteract the adverse impact of unplanned tourism; he also talked with, and listened to, peasants and fishermen. He was able to achieve all this during the 1960s and 1970s by enlisting the active and enthusiastic support of the island's government and public administration, bridging the Spanish transition from the Franco dictatorship to a fledgling democracy. This adds up to a remarkably full inventory of what were later to be labelled as the salient characteristics of responsible tourism (Sabate Bel, 2012; Gomez Aguilera, 2001). With due allowance for context and change over time, there are significant parallels with William Wordsworth's role in promoting his prototype of 'responsible tourism' in the English Lake District (Walton and O'Neill, 2004).
Manrique, who has been described as 'painter, sculptor, architect, ecologist, conservator of monuments and buildings, urban development planner, (and) designer of landscapes and gardens,' was a native of Arrecife, the capital of Lanzarote, and from childhood was deeply attached to the dramatic volcanic coastal landscape of La Caleta de Famara. He
returned to the island after enjoying an extended bursary in New York in the mid-1960s, where excitement at encounters with Pop Art, Op Art and Andy Warhol gave way to revulsion at the artificiality of the big-city rat race (Fundacion Cesar Manrique, 2012; 'La Mitad Invisible,' 2010; Antena, 1954-1965, 27 April 1965). His return to Lanzarote as his home base was permanent and committed, and he began to construct his house and gallery, El Taro de Tahiche, around a lava flow and using volcanic bubbles, completing it in 1968. Further artistic ventures, working with the island's spectacular natural features, followed in a sustained burst of creativity. Manrique identified tourism as a necessary route out of poverty for his fellow-islanders, but it was to be a distinctive form of tourism, one which went with the flow of nature and culture, and respected Lan-zarote's unique natural environment without damaging or degrading it (Gomez Aguilera, 2001).
The power of Manrique's vision made a highly visible impact from the mid-1960s onwards, when Lan-zarote's tourism industry was just beginning to make headway, a decade or more behind existing developments on the Balearic Islands (especially) and Spain's Mediterranean coast (Pack, 2006; Buswell, 2011). Lan-zarote had a long history of involvement in international commerce and the global economy: American crops such as potatoes and tobacco arrived in the eighteenth century, but successive booms in barilla harvesting and processing (providing soda ash for the nascent international chemical industry) and the preparation and export of the red dye cochineal (from insects infesting prickly pear plants) were both overtaken by chemical innovations that bypassed these raw materials. Emigration, especially to Latin America, also opened out distant horizons (Gonzalez Morales, 2010). Tourism, however, was a late arrival on the scene: the first pamphlets for a tourist market on Lan-zarote's natural attractions did not appear until 1936, just in time for the Spanish Civil War to place everything 'on hold' (Acosta Rodriguez, 2007; Gonzalez Morales & Hernandez Luis, 2007; Martin Hormiga, 1995). Development picked up very slowly during the 1950s. Manrique painted murals for Arrecife's national Parador de Turismo, which originally opened around 1950 and was expanded between 1954 and 1957 in
response to gently rising demand (Cesar Manrique, 2012; Antena, 1954-1965,16 February 1954; Acosta Rodriguez, 2007, p. 580). Nevertheless, in 1956 the arrival of 36 Swiss tourists by the Iberia mail flight (on two separate planes) was still a prominent news item on the island (Antena, 1954-1965,13 November 1956). In 1958, work began on an 11-kilometre coastal highway to open out eight beaches on the way to Playa Blanca, passing through (and giving access to) the area of the Tias municipality that became Puerto del Carmen, the epicentre of 'mass tourism' on Lanzarote in the late twentieth century (Antena, 1954-1965, 15 July 1958). By 1964, seven or eight charter flights a week were arriving from Tenerife, but direct long-distance flights were a thing of the future, and even in 1965, when the airport finally acquired an asphalt runway, the prospect of Fred Olsen Line sending regular groups of cruise passengers had a higher profile than airborne arrivals (Antena, 1954-1965, 14 April 1964, 27 April 1965). By 1969, when substantial improvements were being made to the airport, Arrecife had three sizeable hotels as well as the Parador, and its new urban plan allowed for a scattering of isolated ten-story buildings among the prevailing low-rise. However, this was still very small-scale, and Manrique's known antipathy to this kind of development was sufficiently widely known to constitute a barrier to the proliferation of large hotels and apartment blocks (Lanzarote: la Isla de los Volcanes, 1969).
Crucial to Manrique's influence was his friendship (from childhood) with Jose Ramirez Cerda, who was President of the Cabildo, the governing body of Lan-zarote, between 1960 and 1974, an unusually long period which was also formative in the development of tourism on the island. The political dimensions of this association illustrate Manrique's willingness to work with the Franco regime for the good of his island (Martin Hormiga & Perdomo, 1995; Fundacion Cesar Manrique, 2012). This alliance was central to the implantation of Manrique's ideas, during a period of transition which saw tourist arrivals increase from just over 25,000 in 1970 to nearly 175,000 in 1981, with a growing international presence as the growth in Spanish visitors (around 40 per cent in 1970, but 22 per cent in 1981, although numbers increased nearly four-
fold) was swamped by Germans (nearly 40 per cent in 1981) and other nationalities (in 1981, the British were just behind the Spanish, and Norwegians accounted for nearly 10 per cent of the total) (Acosta Rodriguez, 2007, p. 567). However, the transition to democracy in Spain from the late 1970s onwards, which coincided on Lanzarote with accelerating pressure for large-scale tourism development for international markets, led to a dilution of Manrique's influence.
According to a guide-book issued in 1969, at the dawn of the new age of airborne 'mass tourism' in this setting, Lanzarote offered 'Unimaginable contrasts of colour and landscape and, above all, the identification of people ('el hombre') with their geography. Here, strangeness and idiosyncrasy are at the core; in agriculture man dominates the land without doing violence to it [...] the architecture is rooted in simplicity, and even the silence of the island has its colour.' (Lanzarote: la Isla de los Volcanes, 1969) This is more than the usual purple prose of the guide-book industry, and it demonstrates a recognisably Manrique-influenced discourse aimed at a discerning niche market (with both initiative and spending power).
However, Manrique and his allies were unable to withstand the growing pressures for speculative coastal development, which became accentuated during the 1980s, when the volume of popular demand from northern Europe for family package holidays in sunny coastal locations really began to increase (Demetriadi, 1997). By 1991, Lanzarote was attracting over a million tourist arrivals per annum, and in the early twenty-first century the total was approaching two million (Acosta Rodriguez, 2007, p. 567). Manrique was already expressing disquiet about the tendency towards 'mass tourism' in 1978, and in 1986 he travelled to Madrid to present a manifesto against the 'urban chaos and architectural barbarities' of new developments for less discriminating new markets. He produced a cri de coeur of protest against the new unplanned developments, addressing himself to the island person-ified:'[...] those who have fought to rescue you from your enforced isolation and the poverty which you always suffered, begin to tremble with fear when we see how you are destroyed and submitted to massifi-cation. We realise just how futile our accusations and
cries for help are to the ears of speculators in their hysterical avarice and the authorities' lack of decision that sometimes tolerates and even stimulates the irreversible destruction of an island [...]' (Van der Duim, 2005, pp. 15-16; Gomez Aguilera, 2001, pp. 118-19) In 1992, Manrique was killed in a traffic accident, and although Lanzarote was designated as a unesco biosphere reserve in the following year, the spread of unplanned lowest-common-denominator (though not high-rise) development along the east coast traded increased tourism income against chaotic urbanisation (Fundacion Cesar Manrique, 2012).
In 2010, after the long development boom had broken and a strong of planning violations and illegal hotel developments came to light, unesco was reported to be considering the withdrawal of Lanzarote's status as a biosphere reserve (Brooks, 2010). By 2012, the feature on Manrique on the promotional website Lan-zarote Island was presenting him as purely and simply an artist, with no mention of his environmental and sustainable/ responsible tourism campaigns. This might be regarded as a neat way of appropriating those elements of his life and work that were digestible for current tourism policies, while marginalising the inconvenient truths he spoke to the powerful, in ways that are reminiscent of the treatment of the art critic and radical political economist John Ruskin in the English Lake District (Cesar Manrique, 2012; Hanley & Walton, 2010, ch. 7).
This reminds us that Manrique was not unique. As Van der Duim points out, and as the actor-network theory he uses assumes, influential figures who were integrated into international networks, capable of articulating and making use of connections between the local and the global, and able to mobilise powerful figures in government, were capable of making a difference to patterns of tourism development in other settings. The case of the poet Robert Graves, who may have used his contacts with General Franco's tourism minister Manuel Fraga to help to preserve Mallorca's rugged north-western coast (and his home at Deia) from large-scale and intrusive tourism development, is far from being an exact parallel; but it might fit Van der Duim's model rather well (Van der Duim, 2008; Waldren, 1996). On a broader canvas, if we relate the
debates over the development of the national park network in the United States to a historical agenda for responsible tourism, the evangelical role of John Muir, his engagement with government and opinion formers, and the debates over the role of tourism in national parks might usefully be seen as anticipating the issues raised by Manrique's interventions; but one of the delights of history is that it never repeats itself precisely across time, space and cultures (Worster, 2008; Huntley, 2011).
Nor was Manrique unsuccessful, though he lamented his failure to live up to his own exacting expectations. He may have 'lost' the eastern coastal strip on both sides of Arrecife and its airport, between Costa Teguise and Playa Blanca, from the 1980s onwards; but the rest of the island bears few scars. As in the case of Mallorca's north-west, this outcome was considerably assisted by basic geographical conditions: neither the terrain nor the prevalent strong winds in the north and west were conducive to the conventional 'sun and beach' tourism that would have stimulated unplanned development on an intrusive scale. Nevertheless, Man-rique's moral authority and reputation for power must have played their part, just as William Wordsworth and John Ruskin, and the followers of their traditions in England's National Trust, set intangible barriers to certain kinds of intrusive development, challenging their legitimacy in the Lake District (Walton and Wood, 2013). Moreover, a large number of 'sun and beach' tourists take excursions to the sites associated with Manrique's syntheses of nature, art and culture, encountering spaces and stimuli which would otherwise have remained beyond their experience. The impact of this is no less valuable for not being readily measurable, and tick-box questionnaires with predefined alternative responses would not achieve that McKinseyan goal.
Pulling the Threads Together: Implications and Conclusions
The core argument of this paper is that responsible tourism has a history, or indeed several histories, and that this is not of mere antiquarian interest. It has practical value, and practitioners can learn from it. The case studies developed in preceding paragraphs demonstrate the complexities entailed in learn-
ing from the past, and we should not be surprised that each of them brings out different aspects of a proto-responsible tourism agenda. We cannot expect tidiness or uniformity, but we can hope to be stimulated by transferable themes.
As the literature on sustainable tourism expands, there is a danger that it will tend to focus on narrow current case studies, which may bring economic benefits for firms seeking to use the concept for the maximisation of profit. The same may come to apply to responsible tourism, as these ideas become desirable labels to justify projects and practices by mechanically following check-lists and reducing the whole to less than the sum of the parts. A review of the literature from this perspective is beyond the scope of the present paper. For the academic discussion of responsible tourism to promote real sustainability and responsibility, and to avoid a cumulative 'greenwash' effect, it will be necessary to keep a close eye on the founding principles, and to look at the developing themes and arguments holistically in local contexts. Responsible tourism needs to be more than just another way of laying claim to virtue in the pursuit of financial gain. If its goals are pursued in a principled and convincing way, it will come into systematic conflict with the profit-maximising, top-down and centre-outward, imposed line management orthodoxies of most big business, in an environment where it is impossible to hold management to undertakings that may damage profit levels (Thompson, 2003). It needs to be able to deliver on its ideals, as set out so eloquently at Cape Town; and this will entail the subverting of the established assumptions of the market place. It also needs to be audited qualitatively, in dialogue with all the stakeholders, and without resort to the reductive use of check-list 'consultations' whose questionnaires set their own agenda of inclusion and exclusion. Without such a revolution in attitudes and behaviour, as Cesar Manrique found, all the audited good intentions in the world will be undermined by the destructive corporate forces of insensate greed. This is a central challenge for our times.
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Competitiveness and Responsibility of Tourist Destinations
Gorazd Sedmak
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, Slovenia gorazd.sedmak@turistica.si
Tina Kociper
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, Slovenia tina. kociper@turistica.si
This paper deals with the competitiveness of tourism destinations in connection with destination management organizations (dmo) and corporate responsibility. The primary aim of the research was to assess the overall competitiveness of the north Adriatic seaside resort of Portorož and to identify the elements whose performance the destination should improve in the future in order to enhance its competitive position. The secondary aim was to evaluate whether Portorož is oriented towards responsible tourism. Specifically, in many respects responsible tourism makes destinations more competitive. The results of the study show that the destination has some unexploited potentials to become more competitive and responsible.
Keywords: competitiveness; tourism responsibility; seaside destination; Portorož
Introduction
Any tourism company's primarily goal is economic success, which is also a crucial principle of destination management organizations. Economic success can, of course, be achieved in many different ways. Furthermore, the approaches for ensuring long-term success might differ considerably from those targeting short-term success. The responsibility is essentially connected to the issue of sustainability, including its economic component, since no business ignoring the needs of stakeholders (suppliers, local community, etc.) can survive and be successful over the long term (Sedmak, Majdič, & Sedmak, 2011).
'In an ever more saturated market, the fundamental task of destination management is to understand how a tourism destination's competitiveness can be enhanced and sustained. There is thus a strong need to identify and explore competitive (dis)advantages and to analyze the actual competitive position' (Omerzel
Gomezelj & Mihalič 2008). Or, as Ritchie and Crouch (2003) put it, a tourism destination is truly competitive when it is able 'to increase tourism expenditure, to increasingly attract visitors while providing them with satisfying, memorable experiences, and to do so in a profitable way, while enhancing the well-being of destination residents and preserving the natural capital of the destination for future generations.' In fact, in many respects, except perhaps for enclave destinations, it can be argued that what is good for tourists is also good for local people. Neither of them likes the devastation of natural or cultural heritage, traffic congestion, pollution or poverty in the destination. Since the 1970s, awareness of the mutual dependence between business, environment and society has become increasingly present among managers and tourists (Smith & Nystad, 2006).
Van de Ven and Graafland (2006) state that corporate responsibility integrates two main missions:
long term care for social welfare and a fair relationship with all stakeholders, but also for value creation, which includes the creation of employment, and the ecological and social aspects of an enterprise's operation. This statement can be easily adopted on the destination level. In the future, destinations that will support the requirements of emerging sophisticated clientele and that will follow the trends of flexible specialization can develop competitive advantages and also support local suppliers and the region as a whole as it evolves. Strategic marketing and management can maintain the competitiveness of the destination on the long term only via the optimization of tourism impacts for all stakeholders, tourists, local community and tourism suppliers (Buhalis, 2000). Dodds and Kuehnel (2010) identified four areas that tour operators recognize should be addressed in this respect: care for scarce resources in the destination (like drinking water), minimization of waste generated by tourists, cultural and natural heritage protection, and the encouragement of the local production of goods and services, which bring some economic benefit to the destination.
According to the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in Destinations (2002): 'Responsible tourism is about making better places for people to live, and better places for people to visit.' Buhalis (2000) is of the opinion that tourism marketing should not only be regarded as a tool for attracting more visitors but should operate as a mechanism to facilitate regional development and ensure suitable gains to all stakeholders involved in the tourism system.
Destination Competitiveness
According to Dwyer and Kim (2003), a competitive advantage could be attained if the overall appeal of a tourism destination is higher than that of an alternative destination open to potential visitors. In this paper, competitiveness is dealt with on the destination level. Previous studies on destination competitiveness were mostly based on Porter's (1990) and Ritchie and Crouch's (Crouch & Ritchie 1999; Ritchie & Crouch, 2000) models. According to the latter, destination competitiveness depends on four aspects: qualifying determinants, destination management,
core resources and attractions, and supporting factors and resources. However, this model is not without deficiencies as some important indices, such as eco-environment quality, are neglected (Zhang, Gu, Gu, & Zhang, 2011). In contrast, 'resource-based view' advocates claim destination competitiveness depends predominantly on its own tangible and intangible resources, as well as combinations of resources and their management (Abfalter & Pechlaner, 2002; Dwyer & Kim, 2003). Dwyer, Kneževic Cvelbar, Edwards and Mihalič (2012) suggest that destination competitiveness in the final stage depends on tourists' perception. Specifically, the so-called core resources and other destination characteristics and features are those that provide the opportunity for tourists to experience the destination. In the stage of deciding where to spend their holidays, they compare these elements, consciously or not. Cracolici and Nijkamp (2008) agree that tourist destinations' competitiveness derives predominantly from the attractiveness characteristics of a certain area. However, the bundles of these characteristics should be (due to the heterogeneity and dynamicity of the market) highly flexible and able to constantly reconfigure.
Omerzel Gomezelj and Milhalič (2008) investigated the application of different models of destination competitiveness in Slovenia as a destination and conclude that; 'it is more competitive in its natural, cultural and created resources, but less competitive in the management of tourism and demand conditions, with both uncompetitive elements reducing the Slovenian tourism industry's ability to add value.' Results also show for which areas actions need to be taken in order to enhance Slovenia's tourism competitiveness.
There were two analyses of competitiveness in Slovenian tourism conducted in the previous 20 years. Sirše and Mihalič (1999) investigated competitiveness of Slovenia using the De Keyser-Vanhove model and the Integrated model. The results of the study show that Slovenian tourism was stronger in its non-produced attractiveness than in its built infra- and superstructure, and management's capability to add value. For the second analysis (Omerzel Gomezelj & Mihalič, 2008), the authors used the same models and
argued that, in comparison to its competitors, Slovenia is more competitive in its inherited and partly created resources (spas, natural endowments, cultural heritage). The authors suggested improvement of managerial efforts and marketing activities in order to improve the country's competitiveness.
Based on the abovementioned literature, the following 22 destination competitiveness elements were included in this research; gambling facilities, wellness centers, accommodation quality, health tourism facilities, beaches, safety, accessibility and adjacency, local transport (bus, taxi), neatness, sport and recreation facilities, suitability for family holidays, restaurants, hospitality (local people, tourism workers), relaxed atmosphere, shopping possibilities, night life and entertainment, cultural events, pleasant spirit of the place, natural attractions, authentic local gastronomy offer, prices, cultural heritage.
Portorož as a Tourism Destination
Portorož is a typical northern-Mediterranean seaside destination in Istria, lying on the southern part of the Piran peninsula. With its adjacent tourism hamlets, it has approximately 6000 hotel beds (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 2011). With 415,000 arrivals per year, the municipality of Piran, as the most important Slovene destination, accounts for one fifth of the total Slovene tourism income (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 2011). A rough national structure of tourists is: 40% domestic guests, 20% Italians and 15% of both Germans and Austrians; the rest is distributed among other, mostly European, nationalities (Sedmak & Mihalič, 2008).
Portorož is presently situated between the second-generation destinations, offering 3S mass tourism following a Fordist production model based on a lack of differentiation, and the third-generation for which high quality accommodation, conference venues, etc. are typical. While tourists visiting second-generation destinations generally do not care much about sus-tainability, new tourists have modified their values and lifestyles and demand that the tourism industry be responsible in the conduct of its business (Claver-Cortes, Molina-Azorin, & Pereira-Moliner, 2007). As in the majority of Mediterranean destinations, a strong
seasonal oscillation in tourist arrivals is a problem. In order to retain appeal throughout the year, in the mid-1990s hotels started investments with a focus on wellness, gambling and congress facilities. To a certain point, these investments turned out to be the right decision; however, the development on the destination level was not coordinated, and a part of integral tourism product remained focused on the 'old type' of services. Moreover, the overall connection between the tourism industry, i.e. the Portorož itp (integral tourism product) and its hinterland in terms of typical products and heritage presentations is extremely poor. Thus, the present market position of the destination suffers considerably from a lack of distinctive-ness and consistency (Sedmak & Mihalič, 2008). For further actions, a thorough analysis of present competitiveness of the destination in terms of its strengths and weaknesses is needed.
The aim of this paper is threefold. Firstly, we wanted to identify which destinations are perceived by the low season visitors as being competitive with Portorož. The low season was chosen as there is much more potential for improvements to increase capacity occupancy than in the high season when capacities are full. Next, we measured destination's competitive position; in general and regarding its individual features and attractions; finally, the connection between tourism destination competitiveness and its responsibility is discussed.
Research
Survey Instrument
For this study, subjective consumer measures were decided to be appropriate for competitiveness assessment, as suggested by Enright and Newton (2004), who claim that 'specific tourism destinations are not competitive or uncompetitive in the abstract, but versus competing destinations.' In fact, in many previous studies, respondents were asked to rate a destination under study against one or a set of locations chosen by researchers as being competitive to it (Omerzel Gomezelj & Mihalič, 2008). Cracolici and Nijkamp (2008) say that the destinations aiming to be competitive: 'have to face the challenge of managing and organizing their scarce resources efficiently in order
to supply a holiday experience that must outperform alternative destination experiences on the tourist market.' In our research, we assumed that by leaving to tourists the free choice of the alternative (or 'second choice') destination the problem of potential unfamil-iarity with it, which was found to be often problematic (Dwyer et al., 2012), was considerably diminished. Therefore, we decided to measure Portorožs competitiveness through comparison of the destination's performance in the eyes of tourists in relation to their closest alternative destination.
Therefore, we developed two research questions:
rq1a What is the overall competitiveness of Portorož? rq12 According to which elements should the destination improve its performance in order to strengthen
its competitive position? rq2 Is Portorož oriented to responsible tourism?
The empirical work was carried out from November 2011 through January 2012. Information from 451 tourists/interviewees were gathered using a structured questionnaire form (in the Slovene, Italian, English and German languages). As 15 forms were not completed correctly, only 436 were used for analysis. Information gathering was performed by three trained students under the supervision of the researchers. The sample blueprint was formed using proportional stratification based on shares of tourists by the type of accommodation in previous years. However, due to the relative scarcity of tourists in the low season we were forced to 'catch' some extra interviewees in the hotels during the events, conferences, etc. Interviews took place in hotel lobbies and at a tourist information center. In terms of nationality, the final structure of the sample is comparable to the usual structure of tourists in the low season.
The survey instrument was a questionnaire in which the first part included the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents and their motives for their visits. The second part measured destination competitiveness; in tourists were asked which destination they would have visited on this particular holiday if they had not visited Portorož. Then they were asked to compare Portorož's performance in relation to their closest alternative destination. These were subjectively
perceived destinations with which Portorož directly competes. In the central part of the questionnaire, the perceived competitiveness of the destination was measured by 22 elements via a five-point scale.
Mazanec, Wober and Zins (2007) present several theories and approaches to destination competitiveness assessment, as well as sets of indicators used in previous research. Buhalis (2000) suggests six as a framework for the analysis of tourism destinations (attractions, accessibility, amenities, available packages, activities, ancillary services). However, all of these general indicators seem to overlook some essential specific items, such as security, suitability for family holidays, authenticity of food, lively spirit of the destination, etc., which were found to play a crucial role in tourist decision-making process in some previous studies (Cracolici & Nijkamp, 2008; Enright & Newton, 2004; Nemec Rudež, Sedmak, & Bojnec, 2011; Sedmak, 2006).
The authors therefore believed the set of competitiveness elements/parameters should be determined according to the type of destination and the segments of tourists visiting it. In our case, the set of variables was supported by the research carried out by Prašnikar, Brenčič-Makovec, and Cvelbar Kneževic (2006) in Portorož, Grado, Opatija and Nova Gorica, where variables considered to be important for this specific area were included in the indicators set. The majority of these variables could easily also be considered indicators of tourism sustainability/responsibili-ty: cultural and natural heritage resources, safety, neatness, pleasant spirit of the place, local transportation, sport and recreation facilities, authentic local gastronomy offer, cultural events and accessibility of the place, tidy beaches, etc.
Thus, interviewees were asked to rate on the five point scale (from -2 'much worse than the competitive destination' to +2 'much better than the competitive destination') the performance of Portorož comparing to the 'second choice destination' for each of the 22 competitiveness elements shown in Table 1. For those elements that could not be compared between the destinations of which they did not have knowledge, they were asked to choose the answer 'I don't know.' These cases were excluded from the analysis.
Results
The sample comprised 53% women and 47% men. The average age was 46 years. One half of the interviewees were Slovenes (50%), followed by Italians (26%), Aus-trians (10%), Germans (4%) and Russians (1%). Other nationalities were present at levels of less than one percent. The majority had finished secondary education (49%) or had a bachelor degree (41%). In 73% of cases, they were lodged in hotels and in 27% in other accommodation facilities.
The main motives of the visit were: 'relaxation' (54%), 'fun' (23%), 'business or education' (11%), 'wellness' (7%), 'vfr' (visiting friends and relatives) (4%) and 'medical care' (2%).
For the question 'Where would you go if you would not come to Portorož?' more than one answer was allowed. The majority, 42% of interviewees, answered they would choose a resort in the Croatian part of Istria (Umag - 49, Poreč - 31, Opatija - 29, Pula -20); 37% would visit some other Slovenian town/resort (Bohinj - 32, Bled - 28, Kranjska Gora - 28, Krvavec
-	11, Ljubljana - 9); 34% stated spa centers in Slovenia (Čatež - 31, Moravske toplice - 27, Laško - 21); 28% would go to Dalmatia (Dubrovnik - 25, Split - 15, Pag
-	10); 22% of interviewees would choose another place on the Slovenian coast (Koper - 50, Izola - 38, Ankaran
-	7). Among more remote destinations, Tunisia (13), the us (13), Sicily (11), London (11), Vienna (11) and Spain (9) were mentioned most frequently.
In Table 1, the mean values of destination competitiveness elements ratings are presented. Those elements having positive mean value signs are perceived to be Portorož's competitive advantages, while those with negative one competitive weaknesses. The overall mean shows Portorož has a relatively strong competitive position. Its main disadvantages are (presentation of) cultural heritage, price level and the availability of authentic local gastronomy. On the other side, gambling facilities, wellness centers, accommodation quality, health tourism facilities, beaches and safety were assessed as being considerably better than in competitive destinations. This confirms the results of the study Prašnikar et al. (2006), which claims that tourists in Portorož (in comparison to three competitive destinations) are satisfied with the wellness of-
Table 1 Mean Values of Destination Competitiveness Elements
Destination competitiveness element	(1)	(2)	(3)
Gambling facilities	312	0.87	0.79
Wellness centers	343	0.60	0.75
Accommodation quality	366	0.45	0.61
Health tourism facilities	343	0.44	0.81
Beaches	373	0.38	0.89
Safety	369	0.34	0.61
Accessibility, adjacency	377	0.27	0.63
Local transport (bus, taxi)	326	0.25	0.69
Neatness	370	0.24	0.62
Sport and recreation facilities	356	0.23	0.60
Suitability for family holidays	368	0.19	0.58
Restaurants	367	0.17	0.70
Hospitality (local people, tourism	358	0.16	0.60
workers)			
Relaxed atmosphere	370	0.16	0.59
Shopping possibilities	350	0.12	0.81
Night life, entertainment	292	0.08	0.91
Cultural events	287	0.05	0.77
Pleasant spirit of the place	370	0.03	0.68
Natural attractions	374	0.00	0.67
Authentic local gastronomy offer	361	-0.01	0.65
Prices	369	-0.05	0.72
Cultural heritage	370	-0.12	0.66
Mean		0,22	
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) n, (2) mean, (3) standard deviation.
fer and personal safety and dissatisfied with the price level.
The elements written in italic were identified by the researchers as having some positive impact on the quality of local people's lives. They were chosen on the basis of previous research findings. Gursoy, Jurowski, and Uysal (2002) found that the environment, economic wellbeing of the community, recreation facilities, and culture crucially influence local community's attitude towards tourism. Munda (2002), in research carried out in Portorož, asked inhabitants what they expect to gain from tourism development.
Table 2 Mean Values of Destination Competitiveness Elements by Different Motives of Visit
Motive	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
Cultural heritage	-0.24	0.09	0.13	0.27	-0.26	4.11
	(0.61)	(0.69)	(0.69)	(0.65)	(0.75)	(0.00)
Pleasant spirit of the place	-0.04	0.26	0.17	0.09	-0.26	3.34
	(0.61)	(0.75)	(0.78)	(0.30)	(0.82)	(0.00)
Shopping possibilities	0.12	0.29	0.17	0.00	-0.30	2.28
	(0.80)	(0.71)	(0.94)	(0.63)	(0.92)	(0.04)
Local transport (bus, taxi)	0.20	0.48	0.26	0.09	0.00	2.90
	(0.64)	(0.65)	(0.86)	(0.54)	(0.87)	(0.01)
Authentic local gastronomy offer	-0.03	0.24	0.13	-0.20	-0.50	6.39
	(0.55)	(0.64)	(0.76)	(1-03)	(0.75)	(0.00)
Cultural events	-0.03	0.28	0.19	0.00	-0.29	2.46
	(0.79)	(0.70)	(0.75)	(0.00)	(0.90)	(0.02)
Night life, entertainment	-0.02	0.43	0.24	0.09	-0.48	4.75
	(0.89)	(0.92)	(0.77)	(0.54)	(0.91)	(0.00)
Mean	-0.01	0.30	0.18	0.05	-0.30	
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) relaxation (standard deviation), (2) fun (standard deviation), (3) wellness (standard deviation), (4) vfr (standard deviation), (5) business, education (standard deviation), (6) f (significance).
The highest ranked statements were: nature preservation, neatness, events and sport and recreation possibilities. Simpson (2008) claims the 'community benefit tourism' should (among other factors) take care of the environment and natural assets, infrastructure development (roads, communications, public transport, etc.), safety and security, civic pride in community (culture, heritage, natural resources, unique crafts and skills) and the sense of well-being. Of course, the above selection was to a certain degree subjective, and one could argue the restaurants and entertainment facilities, for example, are also important for the local community. However, as the researchers know the destination exceptionally well, they know that these elements are used only sporadically by local people.
Interestingly, those destination features ranked at the top in terms of competitiveness do not contribute (directly) to the local community's quality of life, while the four ranked on the bottom do. These results coincide with the findings of Sobočan (2012) who, on a sample of 135 Portorož inhabitants, found out that only 13% of interviewees think tourism companies in Portorož are responsible in their conducting of business
(33% think they are not responsible; the rest answered 'I do not know'). Expectedly, interviewees working in the tourism industry (according to Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (2011) they represent approximately 25% of the active population) were less critical than those who were not.
Although several comparisons between a priori segments were made, only the differences between the segments based on the motivation of visit brought to significant differences. In Table 2, comparisons of mean values are presented.
From the last row, it can be read that tourists coming to Portorož with business or education reasons are the most critical concerning its competitiveness, as they did not assign any positive value to the seven elements differing significantly among the groups. They gave the lowest marks to authentic local gastronomy and night life/entertainment.
In contrast, those tourists who came to the destination to have fun or to enjoy wellness programs found Portorož competitive on all seven elements. The most problematic features seem to be the offer of authentic food, which was assessed negatively by three out of five segments.
Discussion
The primary aim of this research was to assess the overall competitiveness of Portorož and to identify which elements the destination should improve in the future in order to strengthen its competitive position. The secondary aim was to evaluate whether Portorož is oriented to responsible tourism. While the methodology for the achievement of the former aim was quite straightforward (on-site survey among tourists), the latter was obtained indirectly through an analysis of the relative competitiveness of different elements. We departed from the thesis that responsible tourism development should make a destination appealing for tourists, providing them with pleasant experiences, but at the same time enhance the well-being of destination residents, and preserve and valorize the natural cultural and natural heritage and other resources in a sustainable way.
Resorts in the Croatian part of Istria, other Slovenian towns/resorts and spa centers in Slovenia turned out to be the most serious competitors to Portorož in the low season. Generally, the destination holds a relatively strong competitive position, but for three features its performance is worse than in competitive destinations: cultural heritage, price level and the offer of authentic local gastronomy. While due to the shortfall of more in-depth information on the products of competitive destinations, we are reluctant to give recommendations regarding the prices (perhaps high quality may well justify them), we believe that the rich cultural heritage of nearby hinterland, including typical gastronomy, offers enormous unexploited potential and many solutions for overcoming this disadvantage (Brezovec, Sedmak, & Vodeb 2009; Sedmak 2004). This would be especially welcome for business/education visitors and those visiting Portorož for relaxation, who were the most critical in this regard. Moreover, a more intense inclusion of these elements would also make tourism more responsible towards inhabitants. Namely, cultural heritage and local gastronomy play significant roles in the local community as they represent a building block of people's identity and they are something people are proud of (Vodeb, Sedmak, & Brezovec, 2009). The absence of typical/authentic features in the offer of tourism ser-
vices might therefore cause a feeling of marginaliza-tion and alienation from tourism.
The present perception of local people is that the tourism industry in Portorož is not responsible. Moreover, tourists also assessed that the destination is the most competitive on those features that cause more negative than positive effects on the social and natural environment: gambling and wellness facilities and hotels (except perhaps for people working there). At this point, it should be mentioned that the largest gambling company in the destination has faced serious financial problems in recent years, and there is a real possibility it will have to close down. Bearing all this in mind and the findings of some previous research (Brezovec et al., 2009) showing the relatively high interest of tourists in knowing and learning about cultural heritage, the destination would improve its competitiveness and at the same time become more responsible if it shifted its development efforts towards more authentic products valorizing typical features and heritage.
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An Empirical Research on the Ecological Orientation of Low Season Visitors to Portorož
Helena Nemec Rudež
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, Slovenia helena.nemec@turistica.si
Petra Zabukovec Baruca
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, Slovenia petra.zabukovec@turistica.si
Ecologically-oriented destinations require knowledge and understanding of the ecological attitudes of the tourists visiting them. This paper examines the ecological orientation of tourists in the Slovenian seaside destination of Portorož, with a focus on the low season. More specifically, the environmental awareness of tourists in Portorož and their perception of the ecological orientation of Portorož are investigated. Structured questionnaires were used to interview the tourists in selected locations in Portorož. The research found that the tourists consider the ecological orientation of a destination as neither important nor unimportant in their choice of destination. Furthermore, the tourists perceived its ecological orientation to be at an average level. Comparisons between hotel and non-hotel guests are also observed.
Keywords: ecotourism; destination; ecological orientation
Background
In an increasingly competitive international tourism market, ecologically oriented destination management is vital for positioning destinations in the market. Consumers are increasingly supportive towards social welfare and environmental protection at destinations (Sloan, Legrand, & Chen, 2009). Similarly, Sarigollu (2009) argues that consumers are becoming more sensitive to environmental issues. Moreover, tourists are also aware of the seriousness of environmental degradation, which results in more ecologically conscious tourists who desire to purchase ecologically-friendly products, and who favour businesses that support environmental practices (Roberts, 1996; Kalafatis, Pollard, East, & Tsogas, 1999; Laroche, Bergeron, & Barbaro-Forleo, 2001). Recent research that was undertaken by the Athens Laboratory of Research in Marketing, in collaboration with the Cen-
tre of Sustainability about the green marketing, found that more than 92% of consumers have a positive attitude towards environmentally sensitive companies (Papadopoulos, Karagouni, Trigkas, & Platogianni, 2010). However, some research (for instance, Pigram, 1996; Archer, 1996; Thomas, 1992; Garrod & Willis, 1992; Laarman, & Gregersen, 1996) found that consumers increasingly value environmental resources. Some tourism suppliers have attempted to change their corporate structures and cultures to be more environmentally responsible (Dief & Font, 2010; D'Souza & Taghian, 2005). However, Kempton, Boster, and Hartley (1995) stated that consumers do not know enough about environmental issues in order to act in an environmentally responsible way.
Ecotourism is a form of tourism that considers the needs of the entire environment. It attempts to harmonise the wants and needs of the tourism industry
with the local environment. Price and Murphy (2000) stated that ecotourism is nature based and environmentally educational; it contributes to the quest for sustainability and brings local benefits. Furthermore, Swarbooke and Horner (2007) define eco-tourists as tourists who are largely motivated to see the nature with the purpose of observing wildlife and learning about its environment. Moreover, there are different 'shades of green tourists,' i.e. different types of environmental awareness of tourists on their environmental concern since tourists' attitudes regarding environmental issues are highly dependent on where the tourists originally originate (Ivarsson, 1998; Swar-booke & Horner, 2007).
A sustainable-oriented destination calls for ecologically-oriented destination management. Destination policy makers have to understand, plan and manage tourism impacts and attempt to maximise the benefits of tourism in a given destination. It requires cooperation of different stakeholders, including marketing of individual tourism suppliers with the goal of implementing ecological practices within destinations. Middleton and Hawkins (1998, p. 8) state that tourism marketing 'must balance the interests of shareholders/owners with the long-run environmental interests of a destination and at the same time meet the demands and expectations of customers.' An environmental commitment can have an impact on destination differentiation and destination positioning when appropriately communicated to the market.
Tourists' understanding of environmental and ecological orientations, and their attitudes represent a starting point for developing their awareness about ecological issues and stimulating ecologically oriented behaviour. However, Poirier (2001, p. 209) stated that environmental concern is lagging behind efforts to change attitudes of tourists. Moreover, Lee and Mos-cardo (2005) stated that environmentally aware consumers are more likely to have pro-environmental behaviour.
The current study was undertaken to examine the perception of tourists about, firstly, the consideration of a destination's ecological orientation when choosing a destination and, secondly, the ecological orientation of visitors to Portorož. Tourists in Portorož in autumn
and winter were included in the research, representing a limitation of the study. Thus, the findings cannot be generalised to year-round tourism. The goal of the study is to investigate the actual state of the ecological orientation of tourists in Portorož. Moreover, the research reveals the specificities of both hotel guests and non-hotel guests in this regard. Thus, the study is meant to contribute to the discussion of ecological orientation of tourists in Portorož.
Research Methodology
The research is focused on tourists in Portorož; face-to-face surveys were conducted at selected locations in Portorož, including hotels, the tourist information centre and campsites. Proportional stratified sampling was used, ensuring that the structure of accommodation of respondents was in line with the structure of accommodation of tourists in Portorož. The present research is a part of a broader piece of research on the characteristics of tourists in Portorož in the low season.
The survey was performed between November 2011 and January 2012. It was administered by three interviewers who were trained for the interview. Data collection is based on a structured questionnaire, which was divided into two parts. The first part included a five-point Likert-type scale, but just two scales are included in the present research. Respondents were asked to classify their consideration of destination ecological orientation when choosing a destination (1 = absolutely not important, 5 = very important) and their perceptions of the ecological orientation of Portorož on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = absolutely non-ecologically oriented destination, 5 = very ecologically oriented destination). The Likert-type scale was used because it is the most commonly used technique in tourism surveys, and five- or seven-point scales are the easiest to understand and sufficient for most purposes (Finn, Elliott-White, & Walton, 2000, p. 96). The second part of the questionnaire included the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. A total of 436 usable questionnaires were collected.
There were 223 (51.1%) of women and 194 (44.5%) men included in the survey. The average age of re-
Table 1 Consideration of Ecologically Oriented Destination in Destination Choice
Item	Hotel guests Non-hotel guests	Total
Very important (5)	17 (5.4%)	2	(1.9%)	19	(4.5%)
Important (4)	112 (35.6%)	22	(20.6%)	134	(31.8%)
Neither important, nor unimportant (3)	123 (39.0%)	47	(43.9%)	170	(40.3%)
Not important (2)	59 (18.7%)	33	(30.8%)	92	(21.8%)
Absolutely not important (1)	4 (1.3%)	3	(2.8%)	7	(l.7%)
Total	315	107		422	
Mean	3.25	2.	8		
spondents was 44 years. 319 or three quarters of the respondents (73.2%) stayed at a hotel, 64 (14.7%) at a self-catering apartment, 38 (8.7%) in private rooms, 3 (0.7%) at a pension, 1 (0.2%) at a campsite, and 6 (1.4%) respondents stayed at other accommodation facilities. The study provides a representative sample on national structure of tourists in Portorož. There were 217 Slovene tourists included in the survey, which represented 49.8% of respondents, followed by Italian tourists (113; 25.9%), Austrian tourists (44; 10.1%), German tourists (18; 4.1%) and Croatian tourists (4; 0.9%); 19 respondents were from other countries.
The average period of stay of respondents was relatively high. There respondents with four- to seven-night stays in Portorož prevailed, representing 214 or 50.0% of respondents in the survey; 17 (3.9%) of respondents stayed longer than seven days in Portorož, and 197 (46.1%) of respondents stayed in Portorož from one to three days. Among the respondents, there were only 67 (15.7%) respondents who were visiting Portorož for the first time during the survey. Others were return tourists in Portorož and most of them were regular tourists; 168 (39.3%) of them had visited 10 or more times. Therefore, it can be assumed that the respondents know Portorož well.
Results
Regarding the question about the consideration of a destination's ecological orientation in the choice of destination, respondents gave relatively evenly distributed answers (Table 1); 422 respondents answered to this question. There were 315 hotel guests and 107 non-hotel guests. The mean response for hotel guests
was 3.25, and the mean score for non-hotel guests was 2.88. An independent sample t-test shows a statistically significant difference between hotel and non-hotel guests (sig. = 0.000). The latter have lower consideration for a destination's ecological orientation when they choose a destination. The frequency distribution shows that the average score (3 = neither important nor unimportant) prevails. This score was given by 170 or 40.3% of respondents. Moreover, only seven (1.3%) of respondents gave the lowest score (absolutely not important) and 19 or 4.5% of respondents gave the highest score (very important).
Furthermore, 421 respondents answered the question about their perceptions of the ecological orientation of Portorož (Table 2); there were 314 hotel guests and 107 non-hotel guests. The overall perception of ecological orientation of Portorož is near average. There is a statistically significant difference between hotel and non-hotel guests revealed by independent sample t-test (sig. = 0.000). Hotel guests perceive Portorož to be a more ecologically oriented destination (mean = 3.01) than non-hotel guests do (mean = 2.51). A total of 153 (36.6%) of respondents gave an average score (neither important, not unimportant) to the ecological orientation of Portorož; among them, there were 122 (38.9%) of hotel quests and 31 (29.0%) non-hotel guests. About one quarter of the respondents rated Portorož as ecologically oriented; among them, there was a higher percentage of hotel guests (96; 30.6%) than non-hotel guests (15; 14.0%). Only five hotel guests rated Portorož as a highly ecologically oriented destination. Additionally, 134 respondents rated Portorož as non-ecologically oriented destina-
Table 2 Perception of Ecological Orientation of Portorož
Item	Hotel guests Non-hotel guests	Total
Very ecologically oriented destination (5)	5	(1.6%)	0	(0.0%)	5	(1.2%)
Ecologically oriented destination (4)	96	(30.6%)	15	(14.0%)	111	(26.4%)
Neither ecologically oriented, nor non-ecologically	122	(38.9%)	31	(29.0%)	153	(36.3%)
oriented destination (3)						
Non ecologically-oriented destination (2)	79	(25.2%)	55	(51.4%)	134	(31.8%)
Absolutely non-ecologically oriented destination (1)	12	(3.8%)	6	(5.6%)	18	(4-3%)
Total	314		107		421	
Mean	3.01		2.51			
tion; among them, 79 (25.2%) were hotel guests and 55 (51.4%) non-hotel guests. Eighteen (4.3%) respondents rated Portorož as an absolutely non-ecological destination.
In summary, it was found that visitors to Portorož evaluate the ecological orientation of a destination as neither important nor unimportant in their choice of destination. Furthermore, they perceive the ecological orientation of Portorož at an average level.
Concluding Remarks
This research has shed some light on the ecological orientation of visitors to Portorož. The investigation was based on surveys of the low season (autumn and winter). Following the results, it can be concluded that the ecological orientation of Portorož is relatively low in the perspective of tourists in Portorož in the low season. Such tourists are also not ecologically oriented; the ecological orientation of destination does not seem to be important for them when choosing a destination. In this regard, there is also a difference between hotel guests and non-hotel guests. The former are more ecologically oriented and also consider Portorož to be more ecologically oriented. It can be assumed that respondents know Portorož well, since they are mostly repeat tourists and more than half of the respondents were there for a stay longer than three days.
Managerial implications are drawn based on the study findings. Firstly, Portorož should attract ecologically oriented tourists in order to develop sustainable tourism through establishing environmental marketing, which would also promote the ecological posi-
tioning of Portorož in the tourism market. Secondly, eco-tourism in Portorož should be promoted to different stakeholders in order to raise awareness of ecological issues; implementation of eco-labels and eco-brands should also be considered.
Following the trend of the ecological orientation and sustainability of destinations, a need arises for further investigation on how to expose the ecological sustainability of destinations related to sea and nature. Finally, further research should include a correlation between the socio-demographic characteristics of tourists, such as, tourism spending, country of origin, age and ecological orientation of tourists to obtain more in-depth information on the ecological orientation of tourists in Portorož. Longitudinal research on the ecological orientation of tourists in Portorož is planned in order to provide an appropriate time comparison; this should reveal whether there will be any changes or improvement in this regard. Moreover, the ecological orientation of summer visitors (i.e. the high season) is also needed to determine whether seasonal variations of tourists exist.
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Quality of Life of Indianapolis Residents: The Role of Cultural Tourism and a Sense of Community
Carina King
Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, United States carking@indiana.edu
Sotiris Hji-Avgoustis
Ball State University, United States shjiavgousti@bsu. edu
Jinmoo Heo
Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, United States jheo@indiana.edu
Inheok Lee
University of Georgia, United States inheok@uga.edu
Urban regeneration and cultural development strategies have become increasingly integrated (Worpole, 1991), and cultural tourism, in particular, is increasingly used as a strategic tool to meet the needs of visitors and local residents (Yang & Shin, 2008). Indianapolis has focused on arts and culture by launching a cultural tourism strategic initiative to enhance visitors' cultural experiences, improve residents' quality of life and foster a stronger sense of community. The Indianapolis example may provide support for the case that cultural heritage tourism can enhance local values, contribute to positive social attitudes and strengthen the sense of local identity (Coc-cossis, 2009). This study attempts to measure public support for the city's cultural tourism strategy by investigating the relationship of Indianapolis' residents' awareness, perceived benefits, and enjoyment of cultural tourism with the sense of community and quality of life via a structural model approach. A total of 350 Indianapolis residents who attended downtown cultural and sporting events participated in the study via convenience sampling in 2011. The overall fit indices for the hypothesised model suggest that the model was a fair fit. Residents who felt a greater sense of community and acknowledged greater benefits than their counterparts were more likely to rate their quality of life as better. Tourism development administrators should involve residents in the planning stages, more effectively communicate indirect host community benefits, and address how social costs, if any, would be mitigated.
Keywords: quality of life; cultural tourism; sense of community
Introduction
Tourism is directly responsible for 5% of the world's Gross Domestic Product and employs one out of every 12 people in advanced and emerging economies (World Tourism Organisation, 2012). According to Global Insight (2006), Indiana tourism generated 4.7% of the Gross State Product and supported 257,785 jobs. Tourism thus presents opportunities for host communities, visitors or neighbouring community residents within proximity of the tourism activity to create both economic and social-cultural value. For example, researchers have noted that cities and townships increasingly rely on tourism for economic regeneration and strategic development (Getz 2012; Law, 2002; Rogerson, 2004). In addition, the interaction between tourists and hosts has been seen to increase the awareness of cultural values, practices and heritage (Li 2003; Prentice 2003), as well as interest in expanding education and knowledge (Hamilton et al. 2007; Nyaupane, Morais, & Dowler, 2006). Other social-cultural effects of tourism include improved awareness and a greater sense of civic pride (Cheng & Jarvis 2010; Fredline, 2005), and the creation of nonmarket cultural values (Throsby, 2003).
Since the 1980s, Indianapolis has strategically expanded tourism development via a mix of conventions andmeetings, alongsidesport-andculture-relatedini-tiatives. It is believed that capitalising on the city's tourism amenities and attributes would both attract tourists and improve the quality of life for residents. To date, Indianapolis offers 745,000 square feet of exhibition space, and the convention facility is linked by climate-controlled skywalks to more hotel rooms than in any other us city. The idea of the creative or cultural district serving to create both economic and community value is popular in many urban areas (Bell & Jayne, 2004). When arts and culture are effectively adopted as entertainment and commodity, cultural clusters attract spending and investment (Hing, 2008). Indianapolis is home to six uniquely diverse and authentic cultural districts, ranging from the artsy theatre district called 'Mass Ave' to the hip bar and restaurant scene in Broad Ripple Village. A cultural trail connects these six neighbourhoods and entertainment amenities along the way and serves as the
downtown hub for the entire central Indiana greenway system. A range of local small scale to mega international cultural events, either targeting specific interest groups or appealing to the wider general population, are held in the city throughout the year. Tangible and intangible cultural tourism offerings include art and music festivals, culinary fairs, showcases of heritage arts and crafts, artistic performances, historic monuments and sites, heritage and living museums, etc.
Cultural and heritage tourism is not a new phenomenon and has been regarded for many years as a catalyst for socio-economic growth and development. Cultural tourism includes cultural attractions, sports, living heritage, recent nostalgia, and the daily life of local communities (Howie, 2000). Therefore, it is essential to understand how the Indianapolis host community perceives and is impacted by such tourism related activities. This study will attempt to measure the public's attitudes towards the city's cultural tourism strategy by identifying the residents' perceptions about cultural tourism development, specifically, their awareness, perceived benefits, enjoyment, sense of community and quality of life.
Related Literature
Governments consider residents' quality of life to be an integral component in their urban development agenda (Galloway, 2006). Various factors contribute to quality of life, such as satisfaction with employment and income (Brown, 1993), community infrastructure (Filkins, Allen, & Cordes, 2000), and satisfaction with government and non-profit services (Sirgy, Gao, & Young, 2008). Baker and Palmer (2006), for example, demonstrated the details of a systematic process and outcomes of quality of life. Their model explains that community pride and community elements are strong predictors of quality of life. Recreation participation and length of residency were also included in their model, but the impact of those variables on quality of life was negative. In a similar vein, Mak, Cheung, and Law (2009) reported that social support played a prominent role in the sense of community and that the sense of community is associated with quality of life.
Research has indicated that the sense of community is an indicator of quality of life among residents.
A sense of community is 'a feeling that members have a belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group and a shared faith that their members' needs will be met through their commitment to be together' (McMillan & Chavis, 1986, p. 9). Feelings of belongingness and identification with the community are central components to evaluate the sense of community. The community may be both constructed through formal and informal connections between social groups, based on physical or geographical locations such as neighbourhoods, towns, and cities (Cicognani et al., 2008).
A sense of community is a multidimensional construct that encompasses various concepts such as social participation, social identity, social integration and sense of place. It has parallels with Putnam's (2010) emphasis on social capital, in that connected and inclusive communities are seen to positively add to society. Researchers generally agree that the more residents feel a sense of community, the more likely their quality of life is enhanced (Auh & Cook, 2009; Hombrados-Mendieta, Gomez-Jacinto, &Dominguez-Fuentes, 2009). According to Albanesi, Cicognani, and Zani (2007), a sense of community is associated with social well-being. In order to enhance social well-being, Albanesi et al. suggested that providing opportunities to experience a sense of belonging to the peer group and promote pro-social behaviours in the community is essential. Therefore, positive feelings, attachment to a community, and connection with other residents are fundamental aspects of quality of life.
Tourism activities can develop this sense of community and eventually enhance the quality of life of residents. Governments' initiatives to develop tourism tend to be successful if residents' attitudes towards tourism are taken into consideration (Oviedo-Garcia, Castellanos-Verdugo, & Martin-Ruiz, 2008). Urban regeneration and cultural development strategies have become increasingly integrated (Worpole, 1991), and cultural tourism, in particular, is increasingly used as a strategic tool to meet the needs of visitors and local residents (Yang & Shin, 2008). Belifiore and Bennett (2007) noted that art and cultural events, festivals and the arts have a transformative effect that is complex and layered. Host communities not only gain
economically from cultural tourism (Rizzo &Throsby, 2006): cultural events improve the quality of life of residents, strengthen the sense of community and affect both status and social recognition of the host community (Bachleitner & Zins, 1999; Liburd, 2007; Liburd & Derkzen, 2009).
Having cultural events cannot be an end in itself. Residents need to be aware of the events and tourism development efforts, enjoy the festivities and be part of the tourism efforts as participants or facilitators, and acknowledge the economic and social-cultural benefits derived. For example, Wood (2005) reported that residents who were aware of and attended public sector events reported benefits, looked forward to the event and experienced community pride. Cheng and Jarvis (2010) reported that if event awareness were improved, suburban residents would feel more engaged, and less estranged from the urban 'social-elite' who attended sport and associated cultural events. Residents who were dependent on the tourism sector were more supportive towards cultural tourism (Getz, 1994). In addition, the media effect and publicity can help reposition the host city in the region and globally, and residents' community pride can be enhanced (Dwyer et al. 2000; Waitt, 2003).
Methodology
Drawing on a number of previous studies, an inte-grative research model that specifies the underlying mechanisms of urban residents' awareness of cultural tourism, perceived benefits of cultural tourism, enjoyment of cultural tourism, sense of community and quality of life (see Figure 1) was hypothesised. The inter-relationships among the variables were assessed using a structural model approach.
Sampling and Instrument
A total of 350 Indianapolis residents who attended downtown cultural and sporting events participated in the study via convenience sampling during the fall months of 2011. Participants who were attending downtown events, such as Octoberfest and a jazz festival, were asked to complete pen and paper questionnaires at different times of the day. Based on the studies by Cecil, Fu, Wang, and Avgoustis (2008) and
Wang, Cecil, Fu, and Avgoustis (2006), three items were constructed to measure 'sense of community.' Respondents were asked to rate their sense of pride in Indianapolis, based on the living conditions, infrastructure, and services, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree.' Cronbach's alpha for the sense of community items was .754. An item derived from a survey designed by Cecil et al. (2008) was used to measure quality of life.
The respondents were also asked to rate their 'overall satisfaction with the quality of life' based on the five-point Likert scale. Cultural tourism items were adopted from Wang, Cecil, Fu, and Avgoustis's (2008) study on quality of life and sport tourism. Of the 21 items in their study, the nine items that assessed 'awareness,' 'benefit,' and 'enjoyment' were adapted. Examples of cultural tourism items are 'I am aware of the city's recent accomplishments in cultural tourism' (awareness), 'Cultural tourism helps create a positive image' (benefit), and 'I enjoy the culture-related events that I can attend' (enjoyment).
Data Analysis
The structural equation modelling approach was used to investigate the relationships among the study variables. The model was estimated by using Mplus 6.0 with robust maximum likelihood estimation. Using
Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of Respondents
Characteristics	Frequency	Per cent
Age (years)		
18-30	119	34.0
31-43	128	36.6
44-56	68	19.4
>57	20	5-7
Gender
Male	211	60.3
Female	131	37.4
Ethnicity Caucasian African American Asian Hispanic Marital Status Married Never Married Divorced
Household Income		
<$30,000	64	18.3
$30,001-60,000	96	27.4
$60,001-90,000	115	32.9
$90,001-120,000	37	10.6
>$120,000	9	2.6
selected fix indices with apriori acceptable criteria recommended by Hu and Bentler (1995,1999) for model fit (e.g., x2 statistics, standardised root mean square residual [srmr] < .08, root mean square error of approximation [rmsea] < .08, comparative fit index [cfi] > .95, and Tucker-Lewis index [tli] > .90), the study assessed whether the model fits the data well.
Results
Demographics
As shown in Table 1, the gender ratio of respondents was slightly skewed towards males (60.3%) and the two key age groups were 18-30 (34.0%) and 31-43 (36.6%) years old. With regards to ethnicity, most respondents were Caucasian (64.0%) and African Amer-
224	64.0
67	19.1
7	2.0
10	2.9
114	32.6
172	49.1
47	13.4
Table 2 Cut off Criteria and Observed Indices for the Model Fit
Indexes	Cut-off criterion*	Result**	Fit
	—	86.450	No
		(df= 36)	
tli	0.90 ~ .00	.971	Yes
SRMR	<0.08 or <0.1	.038	Yes
RMSEA	<0.06	.065	No
(90% ci)		(.048 -.083)	
cfi	>0.95	.955	Yes
Notes *Recommended by Hu and Bentler (1995, 1999). "Hypothesised model. ci - confidence interval.
ican (19.1%). Approximately 49% of the respondents were never married, and the modal annual household income group was $60,000-$90,000.
Structural Equation Model
The overall fit indices for the hypothesised model suggests that the model was a fair fit (see Table 2). All parameter estimates and the signs on the parameters were consistent with the hypothesised model for Quality of Life.
While enjoyment was not significantly associated with a sense of community, the path coefficients of the sense of community on benefits and awareness were significant, and the parameters had positive signs in accordance with the hypotheses (see Figure 2). Awareness and enjoyment were not significantly associated with quality of life, but the path coefficients of quality of life regarding the sense of community and perceived benefits were significant and showed positive relationships. Also in line with study hypotheses, the sense of community was significantly associated with benefits (.316) and awareness (.206), indicating that individuals who acknowledged greater benefits and were more aware of the city's accomplishment than their counterparts were more likely to feel a greater sense of community. Therefore, the sense of community (.133) and benefits (.385) were significantly associated with the quality of life. Specifically, individuals who felt a greater sense of community and acknowledged greater benefits than their counterparts were more likely to rate their quality of life as better.
Discussion and Recommendations
The study results suggest that individuals who felt a greater sense of community and acknowledged greater benefits than their counterparts rated their quality of life as better. Thus, ongoing community engagement, the process of working collaboratively with individuals and groups to communicate cultural tourism investments, will allow Indianapolis officials to directly involve their constituencies in the ongoing design, planning, and management of resources. Community engagement provides residents with a venue for participation in and feeling attached to their local community. It also provides a sense of place and offers essential life-enhancing qualities that support community and individual quality of life. Our findings are in congruence with Albanesi et al.'s (2007) study which suggested that sense of community is associated with well-being. By understanding the community benefits of cultural tourism projects, decision makers can develop constituencies that are inclined to sustain their cultural tourism infrastructure over time.
According to an IndyGov (2010) demographic profile report extracted from the us Census Bureau, the Indianapolis ethnic breakdown was approximately 70% white, 24% African American, 4% Latino and 1% Asian. Compared against respondent ethnicity, the sample is fairly representative. There were more male
respondents (60.3%) in comparison to the Indianapolis population (49%) and the sampled respondents were generally younger in age. Census data put median household income at $40,000 (in 1999 dollars), but study respondents reported higher incomes. This may suggest that the younger and more affluent residents were the ones who participated more often in downtown events, and were thus more disproportion-ally sampled.
Faulkner and Tideswell (1997) noted that perceptions about impacts differed due to the extent of exposure while Cheng and Jarvis (2010) found that tourism events held in the heart of the city had an alienating effect on residents who lived in the city outskirts. Thus, in addition to typical resident demographics, length of residency and resident's proximity to the events could be further investigated.
Any successful cultural tourism strategy requires considerable investment of time, energy and money by both the public and private sectors. Oviedo-Garcia et al. (2008) reported that tourism initiatives were successful if residents' attitudes were considered. Hence, community input could be key to a successful tourism strategy, especially in financially constrained times like the present. City administrators should do more to encourage community buy-in, especially during the planning stages. Residents' perceptions of and support for cultural tourism development can also vary based on other factors. For example, residents' knowledge about tourism and contact with tourists affected the perceived benefits (Andereck, Valentine, Knopf, & Vogt, 2005). Indianapolis is not as culturally diverse as gateway cities such as New York or San Francisco, nor is it a cultural capital like New Orleans or Nashville. The Indianapolis population is fairly homogeneous, and the type and quality of contact with visitors should be considered. Thus, future investigations should include residents' level of knowledge about cultural diversity.
Several studies have documented the positive relationship that exists between the residents' acceptance of tourism and their perceived economic dependency on it (Allen, Hafer, Long, & Perdue, 1993; Jurowski, Uysal & Williams, 1995). In addition, residents are likely to understand event impacts better, by virtue
of their proximity to and hosting of the community event (Delamere, 2001). More needs to be done to create awareness and link indirect tourism benefits to the local community. Furthermore, Avgoustis, Cecil, Fu, and Wang (2005) reported that Indianapolis residents find their quality of life to be enhanced mostly by the cultural tourism attractions in the city. Understandably, in contrast, when tourism develops beyond a certain scale, residents may express heterogeneous perceptions towards tourism development (Schofield, 2011). The social costs could range from increased theft in areas frequented by tourists, to traffic congestion and inflated costs of living for residents. In terms of community attachment, McCool and Martin (1994) report that residents who are strongly attached to their communities are more concerned about the negative impacts of tourism development than those less attached. Thus, city planners need to address ways in which the negative externalities of cultural tourism development can be mitigated, and communicate it to the various stakeholders.
It should be noted that the study is based on the context of Indianapolis settings, such as the type, scale and scope of the events, etc. Therefore, the general-isability of the findings may be limited. A comparative gap analysis to investigate the perspective from tourism administrators and industry partners is the recommended next step.
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Measuring Performance in the Hospitality Sector: Financial vs. Statistical Data
Tanja Planine
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, Slovenia tanja.planinc@turistica.si
Štefan Bojnec
University of Primorska, Faculty of Management, Slovenia stefan. bojnec@fm-kp.si
Gordana Ivankovič
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, Slovenia gordana.ivankovic@turistica.si
This paper analyses achievements of the hospitality sector in the Slovenian tourism industry by comparing statistical developments and certain financial data results. The analysis was performed for the 1995-2011 period. The statistical results were relatively favourable in terms of the number of tourist arrivals, overnight stays and accommodation facilities. However, the empirical analysis confirmed that less favourable financial results in the Slovenian hospitality sector were achieved even before the economic crisis in 2008. The analysis showed that there is a statistically significant correlation only between certain financial and statistical indicators. Keywords: hospitality sector, Slovenia, performance measurement, financial indicators, statistical data
Introduction
As an economic activity, tourism plays a prominent role in national economies (Bojnec, 2004). It provides many opportunities for employment, including self-employment, because in many cases this activity is not associated with high initial investment requirements and business risks (Vanhove, 2005). The majority of countries in the world recognize the importance of tourism and almost 130 members of World Trade Organization have made a commitment to open their tourism sector in the desire to attract foreign direct investment (oecd, 2008). The tourism industry is one of the world's largest industries and one of the fastest growing service industries. Due to its labour intensity, it is one of the main generators of employment, partic-
ularly in remote and rural areas (wto, 1998). Because of all its positive impacts on economic growth and development, several governments support and promote tourism development (Ivanov & Webster, 2007). Service industries, and among them tourism and hospitality, are gaining importance in national economies; they are, therefore, a subject of research throughout the world (Chenhall, 2003).
Hospitality is a significant sector of the tourism industry. According to the wttc (2011), in 2011 there were about 12.7 million hotel rooms worldwide. In Table 1, some basic facts on hospitality worldwide are presented.
As evident from Table 1, hotels in Europe reached the highest occupancy rate in 2011. In Europe, the
Table 1 Global Hotel Index for 2011
Region	(1)	(2)	(3)
Europe	66.3	99.86	66.17
Americas	60.2	80.58	48.53
Middle East/Africa	57-1	125.83	71.87
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) occupancy (%), (2) average daily rate (€), (3) revenue per available room (€). Source 'str Global Releases World Hotel Performance Results 2011' (2012).
highest jump in all three indicators was reported in Venice, Italy ('str Global Releases World Hotel Performance Results 2011,' 2012). As far as Slovenian hospitality sector is concerned, the average occupancy rate in 2011 was 43.1 percent (Slovenska turistična organizacija, 2012). Data for other two indicators are not available for Slovenia. In 2011, the total contribution of tourism to employment in Slovenia was 110,800 jobs or 13.1 percent of Slovenian employment, whilst the total contribution to gross domestic product (gdp) was €4.68 billion or 12.8 percent of Slovenian gdp (wttc, 2013).
The main focus of this study is to evaluate the viability and reliability of each performance measurement approach in the hospitality sector in the case of Slovenia. Moreover, with our analysis we aim to answer our research question: is there a statistically significant correlation between financial performance and statistical tourism development indicators of the Slovenian hospitality sector?
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. We first explain the meaning and the importance of measuring the financial performance and then the importance of tourism statistics in the system of national accounts. Next, we briefly present the methodology of the analysis. Finally, the main results are presented and explained, focusing on the statistical and financial indicators that are calculated for the Slovenian hospitality sector. Recommendations for further work are presented in the final section of the paper.
The Importance of Tourism Statistic
Tourism statistics play a vital information role, because (among other things) they can also reflect the
level of economic development of the country. Throughout the world as well as in Europe, there are many international organizations (e.g., World Tourism Organization, World Travel & Tourism Council, International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism, Eurostat) that deal with the statistical monitoring of tourism. It is in the interest of each country to closely monitor the individual sectors of the economy. Among other things, this enables them to estimate how each sector will develop in the future. In Slovenia, there are several organizations involved in statistical data collection and monitoring of the tourism sector (e.g. the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (sors), the Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public Legal Records and Related Services (ajpes), the Bank of Slovenia and the Slovenian Tourist Board). These organizations also issue various publications on tourism topics. ajpes is an indispensable primary source of official public and other information on business entities in Slovenia. For a financial analysis, focusing on how Slovenian business entities have operated over a longer time period (from 1994 onwards), this agency offers access to a database of complete financial statements and the most influential financial indicators about companies, cooperatives, sole proprietors and associations.
In a desire to measure the contribution of tourism to the national economy, a tourism satellite account (tsa) has been developed by United Nations World Tourism Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (European Commission, 2011).
In 2009, sors monitored the effects of tourism via the tsa methodology (Kalin, 2012). Based on the intensive development of tsa, we can assume that traditional tourism statistics (which are based on flows: number of tourists, overnight stays) became insufficient to analyse the tourism sector. Specifically, debate on the adequacy of statistical data when presenting performance of Slovenian tourism regularly appears in the media (Lipovšek, 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012; Pihlar, 2012). In our opinion, statistical data should serve as an introduction or as a basis to performance analysis. Both types of data (statistical and financial) should be used in a combination in order to obtain
the full picture of the performance of the hospitality sector.
Measurement of Financial Performance
A business success is defined as an income or a benefit that the company wants to achieve by carrying out commercial activities (Koletnik, 1997).
The goal of measuring financial performance is to determine how efficiently the business has functioned, and to compare and evaluate that performance to specific benchmark measures (Hales, 2005). This is also true for measuring the financial performance of a specific sector of the national economy (Planinc, Bojnec, & Planinc, 2012). Keown, Martin, and Petty (2010) stated that the most appropriate way to measure financial performance is with the use of financial ratios. They give managers basic information and the ability to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a company's performance. According to Otley (2002), there are three main functions for financial performance measures: as a tool of financial management; as a major objective of a business organization; as mechanisms for motivation and control within the organization. Financial ratios can be calculated using the accounting statements, such as the balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement (Wheelen & Hunger, 2005). According to Harris and Mangiello (2006), performance measurement is also an essential component of the decision-making processes. Meyer (2002) asserts that a perfect performance measurement should consist of relatively few measures to keep track of; that the same measures would apply everywhere; that the measurement system would be stable; and that the non-financial measures would be leading performance indicators. He then also explains the practical reasons such a perfect measurement does not exist: companies operate with too many measures; it is difficult to pinpoint non-financial measures that predict financial performance; non-financial measures are never static; compensating people for performance on multiple measures is extremely difficult.
With the usage of a uniform accounting system, it became possible to determine industry norms on regional, national and international levels. Furthermore, annual industry statistics were produced on the ba-
sis of uniform accounting systems. This means that annual performance indicators and analysis of industry trends became available (Harris & Brander Brown,
1998).
There is a large volume of published studies describing the role of financial analysis of hotel performance. Baker and Riley (1994) suggest the use of ratios; Donaghy, McMahon and McDowell (1995) propose the use of yield management in order to analyse the efficiency of hotel management. Many studies have determined that budgeting as an indispensable tool for performance measurement in the hospitality industry (Atkinson & Brown, 2001; Cruz, 2007; Hak-tanir & Harris, 2005). Meyer (2003) examines seven purposes of performance measurement, which are divided into two groups; one group is more common for most organized firms (look ahead, lookback, motivate, compensate). The other group of purposes is more significant among larger and complex firms (the roll-up, the cascade-down, to compensate). In contrast, however, Phillips (1999) stated that the hotel industry relies too heavily on budgeting as a tool for performance measurement. Furthermore, budgeting is also criticised (Atkinson & Brown, 2001; Hansen, Otley, & Van der Stede, 2003). Ghalayini and Noble (1996) argue about problems when using only financial measures. One of their claims is that traditional performance measures tend to quantify performance, although there are many factors that are difficult to quantify; financial reports are expensive to prepare, closed monthly and, therefore, too old to be useful; measures are not related to corporate strategy.
There are also studies of performance comparisons in the hotel industry (Pine & Phillips, 2005). Furthermore, Hua, Nusair, and Upneja (2012) in their study suggest using industry medians to benchmark financial performance in order to determine the financial outer performance of a lodging firm. Hotel performance was also viewed from the investor viewpoint. Gu (1994) studied the risks and returns in a 10-year comparative measurement. He concluded that hotels do not represent good investment opportunities. Along the way, a shift to the use of non-financial measures has been made. Kaplan and Norton (1992) propose their Balanced Scorecard, combining financial
measures with operational measures, consequently yielding a comprehensive view of the business. The hotel industry took a step forward in the implementation of Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (usali). usali is now in its 10th edition, and its main purpose is the establishment of a uniform responsibility accounting system for the lodging industry ('Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry,' 2007). Numerous countries have implemented this standard, but Slovenia, unfortunately, is not one of them. According to Guilding (2012), this standard represents the first attempt to implement a uniform accounting system in a specific business, and it also allows comparison across hotels. Kavčič and Ivankovič, 2003 researched implementing usali standards in Slovenia. Their main finding is that according to the existing accounting system in Slovenia, a number of accounting categories defined by usali are not possible to calculate or further convert. In 2009, a report on performance measurement of hospitality companies in Slovenia was issued. A model for performance measurement was proposed and authors provided internationally comparable indicators for measuring the performance of hotel companies (Mihalič, 2009).
After the literature review, it was obvious that in order to obtain the full picture of performance of the hospitality sector, it is necessary to take into consideration not merely the financial indicators. This is in line with the finding of Meyer (2003, p. 30) that 'no single measure provides a complete picture of the performance of the organization.' In our opinion, this can also be true for a specific sector of a national economy.
Methodology
In order to obtain an answer to our research question, we analysed the financial indicators on the basis of data provided by ajpes and the statistical tourism development indicators obtained from sors. The financial analysis was performed for companies for the 1995-2011 period. The average number of companies in the hospitality sector was 203, while the average number of employees was 6,672 or 32.91 per company (ajpes, 2013). We included those financial indicators that are related to the business performance of enterprises in the hospitality sector: return-to-equity (roe),
return-to-assets (roa), total revenue, total revenue per employee, and value-added per employee. We also analysed labour costs and average net monthly salary. In addition to the financial indicators, we analysed the main statistical tourism development indicators of the Slovenian tourism sector (e.g., number of tourist arrivals, overnight stays, and tourist beds). Statistical data for the years 2010 and 2011 are gathered according to the new methodology (owing to the break in time series), which was introduced by sors. The nominal financial data were deflated to the constant 1995 prices as the base year in order to obtain real values of financial indicators over the analysed years. The deflator for value of inflation was obtained from sors.
In the next step, we calculated if there are statistically significant correlations between financial performance indicators and statistical tourism development indicators of the Slovenian hospitality sector. We used spss statistical software to conduct this analysis. The value of the correlation coefficient can be between -1.0 and +1.0. In the first case, we would have perfect negative correlation among variables, while in the second case we would have perfect positive correlation (Veal, 1997). The correlation coefficient does not imply a causal relationship between the variables, but only indicates that there is a correlation between variables (Buckingham & Saunders, 2007). Finally, to conclude our empirical analysis, we performed a partial regression analysis in order to predict the value of our dependent variable.
Results and Discussion
As far as tourism accommodation facilities are concerned, the results indicate that the number of rooms ranged from nearly 28,000 rooms in 1995 to almost 45,000 rooms in 2011. By far the most rooms are in hotels. In 1995, 49.51 percent of registered rooms were in hotels, while by 2011 this percentage had slightly declined and stood at almost 49.20 percent.
Figure 1 shows the number of overnight stays and arrivals of all tourists to Slovenia in the 1995-2011 period. It can clearly be seen that the numbers are constantly increasing. The average annual rate of growth for overnight stays is at 3.05 percent, while for tourist arrivals is at 4.64 percent. As a consequence, there is a decline in the average length of stay of tourists.
Number of overnight stays
10,000,000 9,000,000 8,000,000 7,000,000 6,000,000 5,000,000 4,000,000 3,000,000 2,000,000
1,000,000 -
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Figure 1 Number of Overnight Stays and Arrivals for the 1995-2011 Period (sourca: sors, 2013)
Number of arrivals
Table 2 Number of Employees in Hotels and Similar Accommodation Facilities
Item	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
n	5,536	5,633	5,468	5,314	5,947	6,461	6,363	6,287	6,340	6,578	6,959	6,966	7,889	8,076	8,137	7,962	8,015
Tk		1-75	-2-93	-2.82	11.91	8.64	-1.52	-1.19	0.84	3-75	5-79	0.10	13-25	2-37	0.76	-2.15	0.67
Notes n - number of hotels and similar accommodation facilities, Tk - annual rate of growth. Source: ajpes (2013).
Table 2 shows the number of employees in hotels and similar accommodation facilities in the 1995-2011 period. As can be seen, the number of employees has increased. However, the annual rate of growth (Tk) has varied by individual years from declines in some years (e.g., 1997-1998, 2001-2002 and 2009-2010) and increases in other analysed years, particularly in 1999 and 2007. On average, the annual rate of growth was 2.47 percent.
Table 3 shows financial indicators in hotels and similar accommodation facilities in real 1995 amounts in euros. A quick view onto the selected financial indicator in nominal amounts reveals that the values are on the rise. However, inflation is increasing faster than the values of some financial indicators. The consequence is that the real values are increasing much more slowly (total revenue and labour costs) or are declining (total revenue per employee, value added per employee and monthly salary). We also found that the average annual rate of growth of total revenue is lower than the average annual rate of growth of the number of employee (1.57 and 2.47, respectively). This does not seem to be a strong signal as far as the efficiency of employees is concerned. We can also see that the roe and roa indicators worsened in the year 2007,
i.e. before the economic and financial crisis. Therefore, it cannot be argued that the financial results have worsened only due to the global economic and financial crisis. The values of both financial indicators are unfavourable for hotels and similar accommodation facilities. Therefore, managers in hotels and similar accommodation facilities should concentrate their efforts on improving the value of both financial indicators. An important step in this direction is to determine the causes of operating costs, and then managers should find ways to rationalize them (Ivankovič, Jerman, & Jankovič, 2009).
The values of the value-added per employee are presented only for the 2002-2011 period, because ajpes started to calculate this financial indicator in 2002. This indicator is a fundamental measure of an economic activity success, as it shows how much value-added was created by each employee in the company. The higher is the indicator value (assuming that the company has a profit), the higher is the quality of the products and services (ajpes, 2010; Kavčič et al., 2005). In 1998, Slovenian tourism managers stated that Slovenian tourism was lagging behind in creating added value (Gomezelj Omerzel, 2006). In 2009, the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Table 3 Financial Indicators in Hotels and Similar Accommodation Facilities (in Real 1995 Amounts in Euros)
(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(4)	(5)	(6)
1995	185,286,195	33,469	-2.2	-1.7	61,608,037		682
1996	191,513,870	33,998	-2.8	-2.0	57,964,222		625
1997	177,006,943	32,372	-5.5	-3.8	52,991,496		614
1998	154,104,825	29,000	-3.9	-2.7	47,521,895		544
1999	159,796,959	26,870	-1.4	-1.0	53,120,582		540
2000	171,618,493	26,562	-2.0	-1.4	54,223,767		501
2001	165,521,321	26,013	0.1	0.1	52,859,705		499
2002	173,978,386	27,673	0.7	0.4	51,265,290	23,830	488
2003	168,291,554	26,544	1.9	1.2	50,338,259	22,532	473
2004	176,011,389	26,758	-1.5	-0.1	53,524,036	22,906	481
2005	183,285,577	26,338	-0.5	-0.3	59,192,052	22,715	505
2006	195,183,658	28,019	2.5	1.4	53,246,138	24,709	509
2007	224,293,068	28,431	2.0	1.1	56,776,766	24,389	515
2008	238,094,983	29,482	-2.6	-1.3	66,449,370	24,313	554
2009	227,992,201	28,019	-3.7	-1.7	73,607,581	23,271	553
2010	231,925,103	29,130	-6.4	-2.7	72,263,523	22,838	554
2011	229,744,889	28,666	-8.4	-3-6	70,966,937	22,922	538
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) year, (2) total revenue, (3) total revenue per employee, (4) roe (%), (5) ROA (%), (6) labour costs, (7) value added per employee, (8) monthly salary. Source: ajpes (2013).
conducted a survey on the state of breakthrough innovation in Slovenia. It was envisaged that in order to achieve breakthroughs in innovation, Slovenia should create new jobs that meet the added value-of €50,000, and restructure jobs that generate less than €30,000 of added value (Ložar, 2009).
Labour costs have increased over the analysed period. The hospitality sector is a labour-intensive activity and the human factor is essential in performing tourist services. The labour costs in Slovenia have been over-burdened by taxes and social contributions (Vodopivec, Dolenc, Vodopivec, & Balde, 2007). Kosi and Bojnec (2010) found that in Slovenia the tax burden on labour is more than 40 percent, which ranks Slovenia among the countries with the highest taxbur-dens among Mediterranean countries. The results of high tax burdens are lower net salaries (Daneu, 2010). Such a high tax burden on labour has a negative impact on the competitiveness of Slovenia as a tourist destination (Kosi & Bojnec, 2010).
In addition, we analysed whether there are statistically significant correlations between the financial indicators and statistical performance indicators of the Slovenian hospitality sector. Table 4 presents the results. It is evident that in some cases there is a statistically significant correlation among selected indicators. There is a strong positive correlation between the number of tourist arrivals and total revenues. This means that the higher number of tourist arrivals is reflected in the higher total revenues. Nevertheless, the coefficients are relatively far from being 1.0, which calls for additional analysis. A closer look at the numbers reveals that the average growth of revenues in the analysed period is 1.57 percent, while the average growth of arrivals is 4.64 percent. This leads us to think that either the prices of accommodations are falling or that tourists are spending less on accommodations.
There is also a strong positive correlation between the number of tourist arrivals and the number of employees. Again, we can assume that a higher number
Table4 Correlation Coefficients among Selected Indicators
Indicators		(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
Number of arrivals	p	0.804**	0.942**	0.673**	-0.234	0.018	-0.332	-0.372
	Sig.	0.000	0.000	0.003	0.365	0.947	0.192	0.142
	N	17	17	17	17	17	17	17
Number of overnight stays	p	0.770**	0.929**	0.637**	-0.197	0.058	-0.371	-0.417
	Sig.	0.000	0.000	0.006	0.448	0.824	0.143	0.96
	N	17	17	17	17	17	17	17
Number of rooms	p	0.856**	0.769**	0.882**	-0.656*	-0.417	0.111	0.146
	Sig.	0.039	0.001	0.000	0.004	0.057	0.671	0.575
	N	17	17	17	17	17	17	17
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) total revenue, (2) number of employees, (3) labour costs, (4) roe, (5) roa, (6) revenue per employee, (7) salary. p - correlation coefficient, Sig. - significance: ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed), * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed), N - number of observations.
§3 9,000 -
sy
.2 8,000
CP
g
H 7.000
o ,
^ 6,000 5,000
1.500.000 1.700.000 1.900.000 2.100.000 2.300.000 2.500.000 2.700.000 2.900.000
Figure 2 Dependence of the Number of Employees on the Number of Tourist Arrivals (y = 2e-9x2 - 0.0053* + 14911; R2 = 0.9682)
of tourist arrivals reflects the higher number of employees. The consequence of a higher number of employees is reflected in higher labour costs. The average growth of the number of employees in the analysed period is 2.45 percent. There are also positive correlations between labour costs and the three statistical indicators. There is a moderate negative correlation between the number of rooms and the return on equity. This suggests that companies have invested a share of their profit in expanding accommodation facilities. Consequently, an increase in the number of rooms means higher operating costs (Daneu, 2010). This might be the reason for a moderate negative correlation. Among other statistical and financial indicators, there are no statistically significant correlations.
To complete our analysis, we also performed a partial regression analysis. In all three cases, our independent variable was the number of tourist arrivals. As can be seen from Figure 2, the dependent variable was the number of employees. We opted for the non-linear re-
gression analysis, because the selected data better fit a quadratic equation rather than linear equation. With the value of the coefficient of determination, we can assess the quality of the regression model. In this case, we can see that the quality of the regression model is suitable, because of a high value of the coefficient of determination. With the use of a regression equation, we can predict the number of employees in the hospitality sector, if we know the number of tourist arrivals in Slovenia.
In the second case, the dependent variable used was total revenues. Again, we opted for the non-linear regression analysis and the coefficient of determination is also quite high. With the use of a regression equation (shown in Figure 3), we can predict the total revenues in the hospitality sector, if we know the number of tourist arrivals in Slovenia.
Finally, the dependent variable used was the average monthly salary. The regression model is presented in Figure 4. Again, we opted for the non-linear re-
g 300,000,000 ■ (3
jS 250,000,000 ■
<u
200,000,000
,3
H 150,000,000 ■ 100,000,000
--
1.500.000 1.700.000 1.900.000 2.100.000 2.300.000 2.500.000 2.700.000 2.900.000 Figure 3 Dependence of the Total Revenues on the Number of Tourist Arrivals (y = 0.0004X2 - 1414.2X + 2e9; R2 = 0,8517)
b 800 ■
400 ■
1.500.000 1.700.000 1.900.000 2.100.000 2.300.000 2.500.000 2.700.000 2.900.000
Figure 4 Dependence of the Average Monthly Salary on the Number of Tourist Arrivals (y = 5e-10x2 - 0.0024X + 3590.1; R2 = 0.9174)
gression analysis and the coefficient of determination is also quite high. With the use of the estimated regression equation, we can predict the average monthly salary in the hospitality sector, if we know the number of tourist arrivals in Slovenia.
Conclusion
The empirical results and lessons learned with the present analysis are of relevance for future strategy and policy formulation for the hospitality sector development in Slovenia. At first glance, the empirical results seem to be in line with the Slovenian government strategic objectives on the importance of tourism in the national economy, according to the number of jobs and the share of gdp (and as far as the number of tourist arrivals and overnight stays are concerned). However, the empirical analysis also revealed that the Slovenian hospitality sector has not been successful from the financial point of view. The values of the financial indicators confirmed that changes are necessary in order to improve financial performance.
Although the financial and statistical data do not offer the same picture of Slovenian hospitality sector, we determined statistical significant correlations between some financial and statistical indicators. As a result, we could use the selected financial and statistical data in order to perform a partial regression analysis, in which we predicted the value of our dependent
variable. This indicates that if we want to obtain the full picture of the hospitality sector, we must analyse financial and statistical data side by side.
The findings of this study have a number of significant implications for future practice. It is a matter of some concern that the usali standard has not yet been implemented in the Slovenian hospitality sector. Companies prepare their financial reports according to Slovenian Accounting Standards. The Slovenian hospitality sector should focus all their efforts in implementing usali, thereby becoming internationally comparable. Greater transparency and easier monitoring of business operations are other benefits that usali brings.
Future research on this subject should be undertaken in several directions. First, the hospitality sector is only one individual sector of Slovenian tourism, so it makes sense to also analyse other tourism sectors. In that way, we could obtain an overview of performance of all tourism sectors. Second, an international comparison of results should also be desirable to identify the benchmark performance gaps, shortfalls and possible comparative advantages (Neely, 1999).
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Local Community Perceptions of Tourism Impacts on The Slovenian Coast
Ksenija Vodeb
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, Slovenia ksenija.vodeb@turistica.si
Zorana Medarič
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica and Science and Research Centre, Slovenia zorana.medaric@turistica.si
Turizem je doživeta izkušnja, ki nastaja med turisti, domačini in destinacijo. Obstaja obsežen korpus literature, ki obravnava odnos med zaznavanjem vplivov turizma pri domačinih in stopnjo turističnega razvoja. Nekateri avtorji opozarjajo na dvojno podobo turizma, zlasti glede koristi in stroškov za lokalno skupnost; drugi poročajo o turizmu kot dvoreznem meču za lokalno skupnost. Vendar pa zgolj seznanjenost s turističnimi vplivi ni zadostna, potrebno je znanje, kako vključiti te podatke v razvojne strategije turizma in pomagati menedžmentu pri napovedovanju in načrtovanju prihodnjega razvoja turizma. Lokalna skupnost, ki sodeluje pri načrtovanju turizma ima bolj pozitiven odnos, spodbuja razvoj turizma in ima boljše možnosti za aktivno udeležbo kakor skupnost, ki ima pasivno vlogo v razvoju na des-tinaciji. Zato mnogi avtorji predlagajo podroben razmislek in upoštevanje mnenja ter odnosa domačinov pri procesu načrtovanja turizma. Članek temelji na rezultatih kvantitativne raziskave in je del širše študije, ki bo s kvalitativnim pristopom nadgradila proučevanje turističnih vplivov na Slovenski obali. Prispevek obravnava zaznavanje družbeno-kulturnih vplivov turizma med lokalnim prebivalstvom na Slovenski obali. Kvantitativna raziskava med 711 domačini kaže na pozitiven odnos do turizma, še posebej izstopajo družbeno-kulturni vplivi, kot so širša ponudba kulturnih prireditev, spoštovanje dediščine in bogatenje izkušenj lokalne skupnosti.
Keywords: socio-cultural impacts of tourism, Slovenian coast, sustainable tourism development, social carrying capacity
Tourism is a phenomenon based on social interaction; however, it is much more than an exclusively economic activity, and its consequences are dealt with in tourism literature. Murphy (1985) defines tourism as a socio-cultural event for both the guest and the host. Lowry (1994) goes much further by saying that tourism is, in fact, a significant social institution. In the previous
Introduction
four decades, Cohen and many other authors (Mac-Cannell, Turner & Ash, de Kadt, cited in Cohen, 1984) have attempted to investigate the socio-cultural nature of tourism. Tourism is clearly inseparable from society and its culture: where there is a society, there is interaction; where there is interaction, there is a process. Therefore, to understand tourism as a social phenomenon, we need to understand the society, its inter-
actions and its processes. Acharya (2005) believes that tourism is composed of three main elements: tourist, destination and host. It is a process that obviously affects various aspects of society and culture.
The enlargement of international tourism has boosted the mutual acquaintance of different societies and cultures (Brunt & Courtney, 1999). Archer, Cooper and Ruhanen (2005, 79) note 'that the activity of tourism creates impacts and consequences we cannot prevent, but need to plan and manage to minimise the negative impacts and accentuate the positive impacts of tourism.' They believe (p. 79) that 'these impacts occur because tourism, both international and domestic, brings about an intermingling of people from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, and also a considerable spatial redistribution of spending power, which has a significant impact on the economy of the destination.' Because of the interactions triggered by tourism, there is an essential need to understand the reasons and causes, not only tourism consequences. This may be the way toward a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of tourism.
There is a vast body of literature dealing with the interrelationship between the local perception of impacts and the level of tourism development (Coccossis & Constantoglou, 2008; Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2009; Alhasanat, 2010; Parker, Bindl, & Strauss, 2010; Deery, Jago, & Fredline, 2012). Some authors (Perez & Nadal, 2005) warn of the dual image of tourism, especially in relation to community benefits and costs; others (Jafari, 2001) report tourism as a double-edged sword for the host community. However, it is not enough for managers to be familiar with the impacts, but they should also be knowledgeable of how to incorporate this information into tourism development strategies and use it in predicting and planning future development. A local community involved in the tourism-planning process has a more positive perspective; it is more cooperative and has better opportunities for active participation than a community with a passive role. Therefore, many scholars (Perez & Nadal, 2005; Andriotis, 2006; Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2009) propose a thorough reflection on and consideration of residents' opinions and attitudes during the tourism destination planning pro-
cess, which is particularly significant because the relationship between tourists and the local community significantly affects the visitors' satisfaction with a destination (Pizam, Uriely, & Reichel, 2000). This, of course, entails a sustainable development principle, which is the only possible approach for tourism development today. However, caution should be taken to avoid generalisations and misunderstandings, since the residents' attitude toward tourism is not a homogeneous value (Brunt & Courtney, 1999; Perez & Nadal, 2005; Wang, Pfister, & Morais, 2006).
This paper investigates the residents' attitudes toward tourism and the socio-cultural impacts of tourism on the Slovenian coast, with the aim of providing guidelines and recommendations for a more effective planning of tourist destination. The main objective of the paper is to provide suggestions for the decision-making sector in order to follow and consider the host community's attitudes, perceptions and behaviours. This paper represents the first, quantitative stage of an intended comprehensive research project. Some results and conclusions from the first-stage survey should provide the guiding criteria for qualitative in-depth studies in the second phase. In-depth and comprehensive (holistic) knowledge of the socio-cultural impact of tourism might provide an effective tool for planning and managing a tourism destination.
Literature Review
Understanding and continuous systematic assessing of tourism impacts in local communities are significant for maintaining the sustainability and long-term success of a tourism destination (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2009). Andriotis (2006) believes that understanding changes at the destination is useful for predicting and mitigating the potential risks, thus avoiding the decline of destination. Faulkner and Tideswell (1997) explain that the socio-cultural impacts of tourism need to be observed continuously to amplify the benefits for tourism destination. Deery et al. (2012) report that the residents' attitudes and behaviour are crucial for the success of a destination and, for that reason, they recommend that tourism impacts on the local community should be considered, observed and properly handled.
Diedrich and Garcia-Buades (2009) emphasise the relevance of integrating the host community's response to tourism development into the tourism planning process within the tourism management programmes. Their study demonstrates that a higher level of tourism development leads to a higher accordance with positive and negative tourism impacts. Moreover, they claim that tourism impacts become increasingly prevalent as tourism development increases. Accordingly, not only are tourism impacts interrelated with the tourism development stage of the destination, but they require more attention and a proactive approach, since the stage of development influences the residents' perception.
Coccossis and Constantoglou (2008) believe that the tourism impact is a crucial parameter in decision-making processes at destinations and that these processes are essential for the sustainable destination development to be ensured. Therefore, understanding the events at the destination should provide fruitful information for the decision-making sector in order to manage it.
Nunkoo, Ramkissoon, Gursoy, and Chi (2009) point out the difference in residents' perceptions and attitudes between developed and developing regions; they express their doubts about applying the same models and techniques of monitoring. Moreover, they suggest that community developers and tourism planners should take into account the attitudes of residents before investing in a particular development. Cerveny (2007) reports on the residents' attitudes, especially in relation to the increasing tourism volume at the destination. He believes that negative socio-cultural impacts are probable when private spaces and personal lives become part of the tourist gaze. Cigale (2009) has opposite observations, reporting the perception of economic effects as more relevant to local residents than the socio-cultural ones.
The impact of tourism is by far the most intensively researched area within the sociology of tourism, especially the host community or society (Cohen, 1984). The studies analyse different variables, such as the 'perceived level of tourism in the community, the perceived changes in the community resulting from tourism, local beliefs about the main impacts
of tourism,' etc. The data indicate that the perceptions (positive and negative) grow with the tourism development stage and that local households depending on tourism are more likely to perceive benefits (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2009, p. 514). Perceived personal benefits seem to be a significant variable associated with the residents' attitudes towards tourism (Wang et al., 2006), but there is a distinction between community benefits and individual benefits (Nunkoo et al., 2009).
Recent research indicates that local communities are quite supportive of tourism development despite their recognition of some negative influences of tourism on the environment and society (Andriotis, 2006). Similarly, Vargas-Sanchez, Porras-Bueno, and Plaza-Mejia (2011, p. 474) note that the perception of negative impacts does not affect the attitudes of residents. Many researchers observe the impact that tourism has on the rhythm of social life, especially if it is a highly seasonal activity that drastically affects the traditional way of life, the daily division of time between work and leisure time, which in turn may affect family life (Cohen, 1984). The most common variables measured in the relevant studies are the impact of tourism on the quality of life and the support for tourism development (Deery et al., 2012). Vargas-Sanchez et al. (2011) note that the overall perception of tourism impacts is associated with the hosts' satisfaction with their community, while the inhabitants who attain personal benefit from tourism show a more favourable attitude towards tourism development.
The impacts that are presently in the centre of social impact research are, in fact, the new man-made phenomena (crowding, interference with the normal way of life, improved entertainment opportunities and protection of or damage to natural and cultural heritage), the patterns of behaviour (why certain impacts are more relevant to residents than others), the behavioural norms (there are certain presumptions on the behaviour of tourists and residents), the values and fundamental assumptions underlying the quality of life (which are the most difficult to uncover due to unconscious beliefs, habits and perceptions, thoughts and feelings). Due to their complexity, these variables require various qualitative methods in combination
with quantitative instruments in order to explain and understand the results (Deery et al., 2012).
Detecting and measuring the impacts should not be an obstacle today thanks to numerous studies of tourism impacts that have provided sophisticated instruments (theoretical models), such as talc (Tourism Area Lifecycle) (Butler, 1980), irridex (Doxey, 1975), Social Exchange Theory (set) (Ap, 1992) and the Tourism Impact Attitude Scale (tias) developed by Lankford and Howard (1994). However, despite all these models and instruments measuring the impacts, nothing much can be achieved if the knowledge and information gained is not used effectively in the destination management process. That is why Diedrich and Garcia-Buades (2009, p. 512) argue that tourism impact studies 'have been less effective in teaching us how to predict and prevent' negative impacts; therefore, tourism managers are destined to observe the development of events with no ability to influence them. Deery et al. (2012, p. 65) determine that research into the social impacts of tourism seems to be in a state of 'arrested development,' which means that nothing new has been done recently, since most studies deal-ingwiththeissuemainlyusethequantitativeapproach and methodology. Although qualitative studies are essential, because they allow the in-depth analysis of residents' attitudes to tourism and capture more nuances in attitudes, the intention of employing the qualitative methods is still in initial stages (Alhammad, 2012). In other words, their message is meaningful: if we keep dealing with the symptoms, we will certainly overlook the causes and fail to prevent further damage.
Knowing that the residents' responses to tourism are not linear reveals that matters are more complex than they may have seemed to be at the first glance. As Lankford, Chen, and Chen (1994, p. 224) conclude: 'residents' attitudes toward tourism are not simply the reflections of the residents' perceptions of tourism impacts, but the result of interaction between residents' perceptions and factors affecting their attitudes.' The interaction (between hosts and guests) itself seems to be the essence of understanding and applying this knowledge to developmental processes and policy making. Deery et al. (2012) warn that the interpretation and distinctions in the findings about tourism
impacts are lacking, along with the in-depth understanding of the building of perceptions and their implication. They emphasise the importance of a holistic understanding of perceptions and impact formation, the potential need to change them. Although some of the impacts are known and can be observed, it is often difficult to measure the known impact (Tosun, 2001). Ap (1992, p. 666) reports that 'there is rather limited understanding of why residents respond to the impacts of tourism as they do and under what conditions they react to those impacts.' There are many conditions under which the impacts should be explained and understood, such as the cultural and economic backgrounds of the hosts and the guests, the developmental level of the destination, etc.
At the same time, we should always bear in mind that perceptions of changes at the destination could be observed at community or individual levels, so these variables deserve at least sociological, psychological and ethnological treatment. That is why Ap (1992, p. 670) applied the social exchange theory to tourism, suggesting that 'residents evaluate tourism in terms of social exchange, that is, evaluate it in terms of expected benefits or costs obtained in turn for the services they supply.' When a person recognises greater benefits than costs, he will probably have a supportive attitude towards tourism development (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2009). Similarly, according to set, those engaged in the tourism sector, who receive more direct benefits from the industry, have more positive attitudes toward tourism development (Alhammad, 2012). The social exchange theory explains social changes as a negotiating process between parties, which is remarkably close to the concept of tourism destination's stakeholders.
The development of sustainable tourism requires the conscious involvement of all important stakeholders, as well as forceful political leadership to establish wide collaboration and consensus building. It is not a state of harmony, but rather a long-term process of change, set for the benefits of locals and the environment. Achieving sustainable tourism is a perpetual process that requires regular supervision of impacts, introducing the necessary preventing and/or corrective measures. Sustainable tourism should also retain
high tourist satisfaction and provide unique experiences to tourists, raising their recognition of sustain-ability issues and promoting sustainable tourism practices (^izel, 2011, p. 36).
Sustainable principles refer to the environmental, socio-cultural and economic aspects of tourism development; an appropriate balance should be found between these three dimensions to ensure its long-term sustainability (^izel, 2011, p. 35). Tourism sustainabil-ity is also decisive in the search for a more creative and agreeable relationship between the three basic elements: tourist-guest, host society and the environment. This is how the equilibrium can be reached between the objectives of economic and social development and those of environmental protection (Coccos-sis & Constantoglou, 2008). In pluralistic societies, the tensions and conflicts between stakeholders - tourists, developers, planners, communities, and environmentalists - will in the end establish the level of tourism development (Archer et al., 2005). Stakeholders differ in their interests and goals within the destination, and not all of them need to participate equally in the decision-making process; however, all interests must be identified and considered (Donaldson & Preston,
1995).
Sustainable tourism development is closely associated with the carrying capacity of the destination. Management should provide the particular conditions needed or suitable for a particular destination, maintain these conditions, manage the impacts, and control the carrying capacity of the destination (Archer et al., 2005). Similarly to sustainable development, carrying capacity also involves three dimensions: environmental, economic and socio-cultural. Coccossis (2002) explains carrying capacity as being threefold: environmental, social and economic. In fact, the social dimension is recognised as being far more relevant today than it was in the past.
Carrying capacity is also inseparable from the Butler's (Tourism Area Lifecycle) talc model. Butler himself (2006, p. 289) claims that carrying capacity and the talc are closely related: 'It is impossible to determine tourist carrying capacity outside the context of the position of the destination areas in the life cycle. The interrelationship of the two concepts
is dynamic, with the idea of change implicit in both concepts.' Both concepts use the number of visitor arrivals as the variable that drives the life cycle over time, largely depending on the socio-economic and environmental features of the destination. Carrying capacity is also changing over time, depending on the seasons, tourist behaviour, hosts' perceptions and destination management capability of effective destination management. Therefore, the carrying capacity is changeable and needs to be dealt with properly on a case-by-case basis in order to foresee when the limits ofgrowth are being approached or exceeded (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2009). Social carrying capacity has recently become more appealing to scholars due to the quality orientation of the destination tourism product, but the authors simultaneously warn against a large dependence of the economy on tourism, as a decline of tourism can be devastating in such cases. Moreover, without learning more about how to determine potential limits to growth, especially by identifying the indicators that allow us to act proactively and prevent the critical developmental stages for the destination, successful management of tourism destinations can hardly be expected (ibid.).
Tourist destinations tend to pursue similar development practices: they eventually reach the market maturity phase, leading to a decline in visitors. To avoid such a decline, tourism managers and policy makers often use a multi-segment strategy, but this is an expensive and ineffective way that actually accelerates further decline (Kozak & Martin, 2012). Expanding the tourism segments in that stage is an incorrect choice for the destination, because (in the stage of maturity) it needs strength to focus on the most valuable and precious resources that made it attractive in the first place. A declining destination has fewer visitors and lower revenues, but this does not inevitably mean that the destination becomes totally deserted. At that moment of a destination's life, innovations are more than welcome in order to maintain growth, but mostly forgotten in the panic of searching for a repositioning strategy.
A strategy revision does not mean that a destination should be all things to all people. It is particularly common in the process of repositioning that tourism
managers act from the quantitative perspective, which means that they tend to attract as many tourists as possible. By doing so, they seriously harm the destination's image, making it blurred or unclear. Repositioning a destination implies finding an appropriate overall strategy to enhance the destination's image and meet the needs of tourist segments, which in turn creates excellent sustainable growth opportunities (Kozak & Martin, 2012). Wrong decisions in a declining destination cause even more difficulties: being the subject of a frenetic search for a repositioning strategy and expanding services to appeal to more target markets, a destination loses its brilliance and uniqueness that make the difference on the tourism market, i.e. its competitiveness. Therefore, Kozak and Martin (2012) warn that a destination in the maturity phase needs to recognise that mass market growth is not a sustainable strategy.
Study Area
The Slovenian coast, situated at the far northern-eastern end of the Mediterranean, is barely 47 kilometres long, stretching from the Gulf of Trieste to the coast of Croatia. The region is a maritime zone of the Upper Adriatic Sea and, geographically, it is part of the Istrian Peninsula (Rogelja, 2006). The whole coastal area is heavily populated and divided into three municipalities (Koper, Izola and Piran), where the research survey was undertaken. The proximity of Austria, northern Italy and the rest of Slovenia makes the area inviting for visitors. The area has 21,000 tourist beds (27% of the entire capacity in the country), most of them in the Municipality of Piran. It receives about 400,000 tourists a year. The coastal region of Slovenia is the most important tourism area with a 25% share of tourism in terms of arrivals, nights spent and tourism income (Jurinčič, Ogrin, Brezovec, & Kribel, 2009). There is also the largest Slovenian coastal tourist resort: Portorož, a typical Mediterranean tourist resort with numerous hotels, restaurants, bars, shops, sports facilities, casinos, a marina and a sandy beach. Besides a modern tourist appearance due to sophisticated tourist infrastructure, wellness and conference amenities throughout the year, tourists are drawn by a variety of natural features (cliffs, marshes, caves, beaches,
etc.) and rich cultural heritage (historic settlements, salt-pans, traditional food, etc.). In recent years, eco-tourism and cultural tourism have become increasingly significant, especially in the coastal hinterland, where new tourist attractions have been developing.
The research of local residents' attitudes towards tourism was undertaken in the area of the Slovenian coast. Similarly as the majority of the research on the social impacts of tourism among residents (Deery et al., 2012), it was based primarily on quantitative methodology. The previous research in the area dealt mainly with the identification of positive and/or negative impacts of tourism among residents, and the findings were contradictory. For example, the research of Nemec Rudež, Vodeb, and Dodič Pegan (2008) highlighted that the residents mainly expressed positive attitudes towards tourism despite recognising its negative impacts, such as traffic congestion, noise, destruction of natural resources and the coastline, pollution, etc. Nevertheless, a similar research paper indicated that the negative impacts were more emphasised. The aim of the survey of 111 residents in the municipalities of Koper and Piran, implemented in 2008 (Nemec Rudež & Vodeb, 2010) was to examine the differences in the views of tourism impacts between the two municipalities with different tourism concentration. The results showed that negative tourism impacts prevailed (higher prices of consumer goods, a decline in traditional culture and habits, excessive construction, depletion of natural resources on the coastline and inland, noise pollution), particularly in the Municipality of Piran, with its higher tourism concentration. The necessity of including residents in tourism development was highlighted by Ambrož (2008, p. 63) who conducted research among the residents in various Slovenian areas, among others on the Slovenian coast. He highlighted that the main factors influencing the views on tourism development were the following: place attachment, the perception of tourism impacts and perceived and desired types of tourism. The perceived positive tourism impacts had a positive influence on the residents' perceptions of tourism development. As emphasised by Ambrož (2008), the sense of place should be considered by developers and tourism planners as a decisive factor influenc-
ing the perspectives of residents on tourism development. The importance of the strong sense of place as shaped by the geographical space in the tourism development has been also highlighted in the research of Dale, Ling, and Newman (2008). The strong individual sense of place developed by communities located in places with distinctive geographic characteristics is interconnected with sustainable community development. While place attachment and sense of place were not the focus of our quantitative research, their influence, which can result in different (sustainable) development paths, should not be omitted from future research.
Because the findings of previous research were conflicting, we decided to first implement quantitative research on a larger sample of residents of the Slovenian coast in order to identify the main effects of tourism perceived as problematic or positive by local residents. Since the use of only quantitative methods is not sufficient to gain more in-depth insight into the research problem, the research findings will nevertheless allow an additional phase of research, i.e. a qualitative study. The quantitative approach enabled us to compile generalisable data, whereas the compilation of qualitative data in the subsequent research will provide a thorough insight into the topic addressed. Only through the application of combined approaches, will it be possible to obtain a detailed view of the issues.
Research Methodology
The quantitative research was conducted among the residents of the Slovenian coast (living in the three coastal municipalities: Piran, Koper and Izola) in October and November 2010, using a structured questionnaire that started with the demographic questions (gender, age, place of residence, employment in tourism), followed by 22 questions measuring the attitudes towards the socio-cultural effects of tourism, mainly based on the five-point Likert-type scale. The questionnaire was composed of three main sets of questions: first, assessing positive/negative impacts of tourism on the community; second, evaluating negative effects of tourism on different aspects of life; and third, assessing the contribution of tourism to the wellbeing of the local population, i.e. on the individ-
ual level. The self-administered questionnaires were issued directly to 771 locals living on the Slovenian coast, aged 18 or more. To avoid misunderstandings, they were compiled in the presence of the researcher's representatives who offered additional explanations when necessary.
spss software was used for the analysis of the data. In addition to descriptive analysis of the data (mean values and standard deviation), the Pearson Chi-Square test was used for the measures of association.
Results and Discussion
In Table 1, the basic characteristics of respondents are presented. More women (55.3%) than men (44.7%) were included in the sample. The majority of respondents were aged between 18 and 28 (40.9%), whereas the number of respondents was smaller for other age categories. Half of the respondents lived in the Municipality of Piran, the most touristic municipality on the Slovenian coast, while 28.1% of them were employed in tourism.
The perceptions of positive/negative impacts of
Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of the Sample
Characteristics	Frequency	Per cent
Gender		
Male	345	44.7
Female	425	55-3
Age
18-28 29-39 40-50 51-61
62 and above
Residence		
Piran	387	50.2
Izola	144	18.7
Koper	240	3i-i
Employment in tourism		
Yes	217	28.1
No	554	71-9
Table 2 Perception of Positive/Negative Impacts of
Tourism on Various Aspects of the Residents' Life
Item	(1)	(2)	(3)
Range of cultural events	770	3.78	0.987
Arrangement of the surrounding	771	3.74	1.065
General infrastructure	771	3.73	0.943
Offer of sports and recreational	771	3.57	0.961
activities			
New entrepreneurial possibilities	771	3.49	1.127
Customs and traditions	771	3.32	0.940
Public security	771	3.26	1.009
Cultural identity	771	3.19	0.946
Preservation of dialects	771	3-04	1.129
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) N, (2) mean, (3) standard deviation.
tourism on various aspects of the residents' life can be observed in Table 2. Respondents had the possibility to answer on the Likert scale from 1 - 'very negative' to 5 - 'very positive.'
Generally, the residents do not perceive negative impacts of tourism on selected aspects of life. In their view, tourism has the most positive impacts on the offer of cultural events (3.78), arrangement of the surrounding (3.74) and the general infrastructure (3.73). Among the factors listed above, the least positively rated (but still within the average values) is the influence on the preservation of dialects and the impact on cultural identity. The average values might suggest that the respondents are undecided about the impact on these aspects of life or do not have any opinion on the issue. None of the values is below average; therefore, a generally positive view of the residents towards tourism impacts on the above-stated areas of life can be observed. Nevertheless, on average, the residents evaluate the effect of tourism on the community structure and characteristics (3.59) more positively than its impacts on cultural aspects of life (customs and traditions, cultural identity, preservation of dialects - average value 3.18). It is intriguing, however, that the residents who positively assess the impact of tourism on cultural identity are also more likely to see its positive effects on customs and tradition, preservation of dialects, range of cultural events as well as orderli-
Table 3 The Effect of Tourism on Different Aspects of Life
Item	(1)	(2)		(3)
Traffic congestion	769	4.24	0	.952
Noise	770	3.84	1	.057
Deviant behaviour of youth	770	3.26	1	.102
Crime rate	770	3.17	1	.079
Changes in the behaviour oflocals	770	2.98	1	112
Gambling addiction	771	2.95	1	.167
Social exclusion oflocals	771	2.82	1	.127
Presence of prostitution	770	2.79	1	.169
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) N, (2) mean, (3) standard deviation.
ness of the environment. Additionally, they are more likely to assert that the locals respect their own heritage, enrich their own experiences, understand and learn about other cultures because of tourism. All correlations were statistically significant.
Furthermore, the respondents evaluated the effects of tourism in the Slovenian coastal region on various features that are usually perceived as negative aspects of tourism development. Again, they rated each characteristic on a scale from 1 - 'very little effect' to 5 -'significant effect.'
It can be observed that 'congestion' (4.24) stands out significantly, followed by 'noise' (3.84). Congestion was identified as an important issue in previous studies (Brunt & Courtney, 1999; Ratz, 2001), as also in the research area (Nemec Rudež et al., 2008). It has also been acknowledged as an important issue in the tourism strategies of the three municipalities included in the research, especially in the Municipality of Piran as the most touristic one. Deviant behaviour of youth (3.26) and the crime rate (3.17) are also recognised as aspects affected by tourism, but not to such extent as congestion and noise. In contrast, the presence of prostitution is an aspect that was least frequently rated as being importantly affected by tourism on the Slovenian coast (2.79), as well as the social exclusion oflocals (2.82).
In the residents' opinions, tourism contributes to the locals' respect of their own heritage (3.56) and the enrichment of their own experiences (3.38). Other aspects, such as their own involvement in tourist travel
Table 4 How Much Does Tourism on the Slovenian Coast Contribute for Locals
Item	(1)	(2)	(3)
Respect their own heritage	769	3.56	1.095
Enrich their own experiences	770	3.38	1.122
Understand foreign cultures	770	3.32	1.101
Learn about other cultures	770	3.25	1.175
Involve in tourist travel	770	3-17	1.175
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) N, (2) mean, (3) standard deviation.
or learning about other cultures were given roughly average values.
In view of previous analyses showing that local residents who directly benefit from tourism will more likely perceive tourism benefits (Wang et al., 2006; Vargas-Sanchez et al., 2011), the possible differences in the perceptions of those employed in the tourism sector compared to other residents were analysed. Significant differences were observed in the opinions about customs and traditions; those employed in the tourism sector more frequently perceived tourism as positively affecting customs and traditions (x2 = 13.930, p = 0.008) and the offer of cultural events (x2 = 11.847, p = 0.019). Furthermore, compared to those not employed in the tourism sector, they stated that tourism on the Slovenian coast has a significant effect on traffic congestion slightly little less frequently (x2 = 13.848, p = 0.008). Additionally, they more frequently saw tourism on the Slovenian coast as contributing to learning about other cultures (x2 = 11.587, p = 0.021) as well as understanding foreign cultures (x2 = 9.302, p = 0.054). The findings are in line with the abovementioned findings about the residents/households directly benefitting from tourism perceiving more tourism benefits. It is particularly interesting that they more positively valued the tourism effects on cultural aspects of life, such as customs and traditions, the range of cultural events and better inter-cultural understanding. The latter might be connected to the more frequent contacts with tourists and different cultures and therefore greater sensitivity towards these issues.
According to Alhasanat (2008), previous research
on gender differences shows various results. While some reveal no differences between the opinions of men and women, other show a more negative opinion of women regarding traffic, noise and crime rates. The analysis of gender differences in our study reveals only minor dissimilarity between the answers of men and women. In the present study, women more often than men positively value the tourism impact on the range of cultural events (x2 = 10.815, p = 0.029). In comparison to men, they more often see tourism as contributing to enriching the locals' experiences (x2 = 10.326, p = 0.035) and understanding foreign cultures (x2 = 9.508, p = 0.05).
Some age differences also exist: people aged between 35 and 50 more positively evaluate the effect which tourism has on the range of cultural events (x2 = 11.100, p = 0.025) and on cultural identity (x2 = 16.781, p = 0.002) as well as its positive effect on new entrepreneurial possibilities (x2 = 10.966, p = 0.027).
The opinion that tourism has a significant effect on traffic congestion decreases with age: younger people agree with it more than residents of other age groups (x2 = 24.611, p = 0.000).
The generally positive views on tourism development found through our quantitative research were also noted in previous research on the Mediterranean coastal areas (Tatoglu, Erdal, Ozgur, & Azakli, 2000; Vounatsou, Laloumis, & Pappas, 2005, Mantecon & Huete, 2011). The positive overall opinion, as stated by Vounatsou et al. (2005), can be perceived through the lens of the social exchange theory, according to which the people responses, i.e. positive attitudes towards tourism, are related to the perceived benefits exceeding costs. Despite the positive attitudes towards tourism, their research among residents of Mykonos also revealed negative aspects of tourism that should be taken into account in further tourism planning (gay tourism, increase of crime, influences on language changes as well as lack of tranquillity). Similarly, in the case of our research, while positive perceptions of tourism impacts prevail, 'congestion,' 'traffic' and to a lesser extent 'deviant behaviour of youth' have been identified as the issues that need to be dealt with in the future research as well as development planning.
Crowding and congestion are also perceived as negative impacts in the research on a Turkish coastal town (Tatoglu et al., 2000), according to which tourism is positively perceived in its economic, cultural and social aspects, while the environmental impacts of tourism are often seen as less favourable.
The general positive attitude towards the impacts of tourism on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, despite the typical massive tourism development, have also been found by Mantecon and Huete (2011); however, they do not focus on socio-demographic variables influencing the views on tourism, but analyse the dichotomous views underlying the general legitimisa-tion perceptions by the 'defenders' and 'critics:' an intriguing perspective often explaining the conflicting views on tourism development that can also be taken into consideration in the future quantitative as well as qualitative research.
Conclusions
It is generally known and accepted that the residents' attitudes towards tourism impacts are a relevant planning and policy consideration for the successful development, marketing, operation and sustainability of the current and future tourism policies (Alhammad, 2012). Moreover, gaining deeper insights into the locals' attitudes is the crucial point of tourism development and sustainability (Nunkoo & Ramkissoon, 2010). Since residents' positive perceptions of tourism benefits are significant in obtaining their support, planners should be cautious in considering how to present such benefits through marketing and management techniques to obtain the residents' participation (Oviedo-Garcia, Castelanos-Verdugo, & Martin-Ruiz, 2007). It would be particularly useful to set measurable objectives for the proposed tourism activities and to communicate them to the local population in a manner they can respond to, thus engaging them in the process of tourism planning. It means that the proper conditions for coordinated dialogue between the local community and tourism management should be enabled.
The residents' level of involvement with the tourism industry and tourists shows some correlation with their attitudes. Through a two-way interaction
process of citizen education and engagement, managers could enhance the resident's knowledge and their commitment, which may in turn enlarge their support for the tourism industry, possibly even widen it to activism and friendly behaviour towards guests. Backed by knowledge about psychological and sociological forces triggering differing attitudes toward tourism among the locals, community development practitioners would be more successful in handling conflicts and establishing consent within communities about the aspired future (Andereck, Valentine, Knopf, & Vogt, 2005). It would be necessary for decision-makers and private sector representatives to acknowledge the fact that tourism always creates negative and positive impacts on communities. The main reason for cooperation between the decision-makers and private sector representatives is to introduce participatory development measures in order to minimise negative and maximise positive tourism impacts. Without such recognition and the enactment of the necessary measures, the tourism industry might gradually lose the host communities' support, which in turn may compromise the sustainability of development in future (Tosun, 2001).
The data analysis presented supports the evidence that residents generally have positive views on tourism. Some negative effects of tourism have also been acknowledged, such as traffic congestion and noise; however, the perceived positive views on tourism effects that have been recognised both on the community level (such as a positive effect of tourism on general infrastructure, orderliness of the environment, cultural, sports and recreational activities, entrepreneurial possibilities, etc.) as well as on the individual level (locals respecting their own heritage, enriching their own experiences, understanding foreign cultures and learning about them) prevail. The data also shows that those employed in the tourism sector show more positive attitudes towards cultural aspects of tourism, such as a positive impact on customs and tradition and offer of cultural events as well as recognising the influence of tourism on the locals through contributing to the knowledge and understanding about other cultures and their understanding. It seems that the local community on the Slovenian coast is generally supportive
of tourism and particularly recognises its positive effects.
An important step in further research would be, however, to implement a research agenda as proposed by Deery et al. (2012), adding a qualitative research to the existing quantitative one and thus gaining the necessary explanations as well as a more in-depth view on the issue. That will be the next stage of this research, when interviews will be conducted with local community representatives, focused upon the key findings of this particular qualitative research. The main adverse impacts (traffic congestion, noise, and deviant behaviour) will be examined in order to establish participatory coordination mechanisms for future planning efforts. Positive impacts will also be considered in interviews for a more comprehensive understanding of each impact (values, perceptions, feelings, habits and attitudes) and to prepare guidelines for a more effective communication with decision-makers. The proposed approach is more time-consuming and costly, but nevertheless necessary in the future research in order to gain a deeper understanding oftourism impacts on local residents, their interpretation and consideration.
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The Pressure on the Coastal Area as a Factor of Sustainability of Croatian Tourism
Zoran Klarič
Institute for Tourism Zagreb, Croatia zoran.klaric@iztzg.hr
Among many aspects of tourism sustainability, especially noteworthy is pressure on the coastal area, i.e. the number of accommodation establishments compared with the length of coastline and total area of the particular geographical units (counties, municipalities, towns or islands). This work elaborates changes in the pressure on the coastal areas in the previous ten years in the entire Croatian coastline in order to show the differences regarding the pressure on the coastal strip and the total areas of coastal administrative units. The first part analyses the number of beds in comparison with the length of coastline and the total areas of Croatian counties with some approximations for smaller spatial units. The second part reports on an analysis of data about secondary homes compared with the previous data in order to show that the pressure from this type of accommodation is in many areas more dangerous than the pressure caused by commercial tourist accommodation. The concluding part summarises all the previous results, emphasising the differences between various forms of pressures on the coastal areas and pointing out the parts of Croatia that are under especially dangerous pressure from tourism and housing development.
Keywords: sustainability, pressure on coastal areas, Croatian coastline, length of coastline, accommodation establishments, secondary homes
Introduction and Literature Review
The physical pressure on the coastal strip by different types of users is one of the most critical indicators for an assessment of tourism-carrying capacity and, therefore, of overall tourism sustainability. This is especially so in areas oriented towards sunbathing and swimming tourism (hereinafter: bathing tourism), such as Croatia with almost 95 per cent of its tourism oriented to Adriatic coastal areas (Croatian Bureau of Statistics, 2011b). Considering changes regarding the pressure on the Croatian coast as the most important tourist area, the main goal of this work was to analyse the changes over the previous ten years and to highlight the zones particularly exposed to unsustainable forms of development.
The analysis of the changes dealing with the phys-
ical pressure on the coastal strip was also a part of the engagement of the author on the project 'Master Plan and Strategy of the Tourism Development of the Republic of Croatia' (Institut za turizam, 2011). An important part of this project was analysis of tourism sustainability as a factor of tourism development in Croatia with the specific goal of determining the areas exposed to threats of uncontrolled development of tourism. An extremely useful tool for the analysis were recent data from the 2011 Census (Croatian Bureau of Statistics, 2011a), because it includes data about secondary homes on the settlement level for the whole of Croatia. This was especially noteworthy, because the building of secondary homes had already been indicated as one of the main factors of unsustainable development on the Croatian coast, probably more dan-
gerous than the building of tourist accommodation capacities, but there were no data available on their numbers and sizes after 2001 (the previous census year).
In order to indicate the locations showing undesirable forms of development, this work compares the changes of the number of accommodation establishments and secondary homes in the same period were both data were available: in 2001 and 2011. Those data were then related to the length of coastline and the total area of the particular geographical units: counties, municipalities and towns for the whole of Croatia. Since the number of accommodation establishments is especially suitable as an indicator for measuring tourism pressure from the spatial point of view, it was analysed from various aspects, including comparison with the territory, length of coastline, population, as well as considering various forms of accommodation establishments, i.e. tourist accommodation versus secondary homes.
Because it was more beneficial to analyse details regarding spatial context for the purpose of the project, other indicators dealing with tourist density such as the number of tourists, the number of overnight stays or the share of tourism in the overall economy were not included, although they are also noteworthy for the analysis of tourism importance (Osaragi, 2002). Other than their importance, there was a threat that the usage of other indicators could lead to some conclusions that could divert attention from main problems, which is caused by differences between performance of tourism in the coastal and continental parts of Croatia. That is clear in many works dealing with tourism density in Croatia as a country overly oriented towards coastal tourism.
This is seen in the article 'Contemporary Issues in the Regional Development of Tourism in Croatia' (Curic, Glamuzina, & Opacic, 2012) as the most recent example of spatial analysis of tourism dealing with the whole territory of Croatia. In this work, the authors have used seven indicators: the total number of beds, tourist arrivals, tourist nights, international tourist arrivals and tourist nights, and the number of tourist arrivals related to the territory and population of Croatian towns and municipalities. They also used the Jenks optimisation method in order to
minimise variations within classes (Jenks, & Coulson, 1963; Andrienko, Andrienko, & Savinov, 2001). The analysis in this work clearly indicated coastal areas as those with highest tourism pressure, but it has also highlighted some continental areas as critical from the tourist point of view, although tourism pressure there is not so high due to lower seasonality.
Since the basic purpose of the Master Plan and Strategy of the Tourism Development of the Republic of Croatia (Institut za turizam, 2011) was tourism planning over a longer period, the indicators based on the number of visitors and overnights were also less useful because they were more dependent on changes over a short time. Furthermore, there was a need to compare the development of secondary homes with the development of tourist capacities, and that was possi-blyonlybycomparingthenumberofbeds. Theimpor-tance of secondary homes for the tourism-carrying capacity of Croatian coast is evident in numerous strategic and planning documents, and they are already criticised as probably being a more dangerous threat to tourism sustainability than tourism accommodation capacities.
That becomes clear in many research papers dealing with tourism in Croatia, such as Recent Characteristics ofthe Second Home Phenomena in the Croatian Littoral (Opacic, 2009). However, in this and other works dealing with the spatial aspects of tourism development, the tourist accommodation capacities and secondary homes are analysed as separate phenomena, and secondary homes often as not directly related to tourism (Roca, Roca, & Oliviera, 2011). That is also caused by a fact that secondary homes are usually treated as a different type of housing and not as tourist accommodation; therefore, there are no official data about the number of visitors and overnights in those establishments. That is also the case with Croatian Bureau of Statistics (Croatian Bureau of Statistics, 2011a), which treats secondary homes as a type of dwellings 'not used for primary residence.'
In addition to possibilities for comparison with pressure from secondary homes, the importance of the number of tourist beds is also evident, because it is continuously used as probably the most useful indicator of tourism importance. That was a case both in
the past (Klaric, 1987) and recently (Banica & Camara, 2011).
The recent development of Croatian coastal tourism is characterised by the slow growth of accommodation capacities, but accompanied by the much higher growth of secondary homes. Due to their primary use for spending bathing holidays on the coast, secondary homes also represent a pressure on the coastal strip, and its importance with regard to the carrying capacity is extremely high. In many cases, this pressure is even higher than the pressure from hotels and similar establishments, because people in secondary homes are often spending more time on the beach due to the limited availability of other activities. That is especially so where secondary residences represent the main tourist structure (Klaric, 2007).
In many coastal areas, especially those less populated with a small number of tourist accommodation capacities, secondary residences are therefore more serious threat to the carrying capacity than the hotels and similar establishments. This problem is evident not only in Croatia, but also in many other countries in the Mediterranean, such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus, etc. (Guide to good practice, 2003).
In order to compare the consequences of those two forms of pressure on the coastal zone, this work elaborates the changes over the last ten years for the entire Croatian coastline.
The first part of this work is analysing the total number of beds in comparison with the length of coastline and areas of Croatian coastal counties, with some approximations for smaller spatial units. The second part includes current and past data about secondary homes, indicating the differences in its spatial distribution. The analysis of numerical data is carried out in order to emphasise the main problem, i.e. that pressure from tourism activities is different in particular areas depending of the main source of physical pressure - from commercial tourist accommodation capacities or secondary homes.
Methodological Approach
Since the main purpose of this work is the detection of the zones characterised with the highest unsustain-ability of tourism in the whole territory of Croatia,
the analysis is mainly based on the comparison of the change in the number of tourist beds and the change in the number of people in secondary residences between the year 2001 and 2011. An additional reason for performing this comparison was a possibility for using detailed and precise statistical sources, which are available for the secondary residences only in census years 2001 and 2011 (Croatian Bureau of Statistics, 2001a, 2011a).
Such analysis was especially useful because it was implemented as a part of the planning process in the project Master Plan and Strategy of the Tourism Development of the Republic of Croatia (Institut za tur-izam, 2011). Available statistical sources give access to data on a detailed local level, enabling the usage of gis tools for the analysis. Therefore, it was possible to produce maps showing spatial aspects of tourism development for all 127 towns and 429 municipalities of Croatia and also to assess data for all 6,755 settlements in Croatia.
Besides the possibility of comparison of two different forms of pressure on the environment, the number of tourist beds was especially useful as an indicator of the specific circumstances of the tourism development of Croatia. The reason for this is that the number of beds reflects in the best way the pressure on the coastal strip as the most vital part of Croatia regarding tourism sustainability. Apart from the indicators based on the number of tourists or overnights, which are more salient for areas having year-round tourism, the number ofbeds is more suitable for coastal parts of Croatia, because it is focused on the period when almost all accommodation establishments are occupied.
Having in mind that the number of beds reflects the pressure in the summer period, it is especially representative for areas with extreme concentrations of tourists in the high season, i.e. during July and August. At the same time, the number of accommodation establishments related with the particular area or coastal zone is less exposed to changes in a short period of time and is less influenced by the typology of tourism than many other indicators. In fact, the number of visitors/tourists or overnights are much more exposed to changes in a short period of time due to exceptional circumstances, such as weather conditions or politi-
Table 1 Area and Population of Croatian Counties in 2001 and 2011
County	Area in km2		Nr. ofinhabitants		% in	Per km2	A 2011-
	Total	%	2001	2011	2011	in 2011	2011, %
County of Istria	2,813	4.9	206,344	208,055	4.9	74.0	0.8
County of Primorje-Gorski kotar	3,588	6.3	305,505	296,195	6.9	82.6	-3.0
County of Lika-Senj	5,353	9.5	53,677	50,927	1.2	9.5	-5.1
County of Zadar	3,646	6.4	162,045	170,017	4.0	46.6	4.9
County of Šibenik-Knin	2,984	5.3	112,891	109,375	2.6	36.7	-3.1
County of Split-Dalmatia	4,540	8.0	463,676	454,798	10.6	100.2	-1.9
County of Dubrovnik-Neretva	1,781	3-1	122,870	122,568	2.9	68.8	-0.2
Coastal Croatia	24,705	43.7	1,427,008	1,411,935	33.0	57.2	-1.1
Continental Croatia	31,889	56.3	3,010,452	2,872,954	67.0	90.1	-4.6
Croatia Total	56,594	100.0	4,437,460	4,284,889	100.0	75.7	-3.4
Notes Source: Croatian Bureau of Statistics (2001a, 2011a, 2012).
cal problems, and can show decidedly different results depending on the average length of stay and seasonal distribution of tourism in particular areas of Croatia.
For example, the same number of tourists represents a much higher pressure on the environment on Croatian islands (as additionally sensitive spatial entities) than in the continental urban areas (as generally less sensitive areas). This is because on the islands the average length of stay of tourists is usually longer than five days, and in urban areas the average length of stay is only a day or two. For the same reason, a relatively high number of overnights indicates much higher pressure on the environment in the areas where tourism is concentrated mainly in the summer months than in the areas where tourism is equally distributed throughout the year, and the usage of accommodation capacities is higher, what is a case in the majority of continental urban areas of Croatia.
For the same reason, the data about tourist accommodation capacities are comparable with the data about secondary homes, which are usually occupied in the same time as commercial tourist capacities, especially in coastal areas. Furthermore, it is possible to estimate the number of people in secondary homes based on their number and their average area, but it is much more difficult to estimate the number of people residing in them throughout the year, as well the number of nights spent. This is also significant be-
cause the pattern of usage of secondary homes is very different in coastal and continental parts of Croatia. In the coastal areas, secondary homes are usually occupied during the summer period as commercial tourist capacities, and in the continental part mainly during weekends except in the winter and rainy weather, which is different from commercial tourist capacities often occupied during the working week.
In addition to the basis of statistical data and maps produced by gis sources, the conclusions in this work were also made on the basis of empirical methods and many other sources, which were part of the Master Plan and Strategy of the Tourism Development of the Republic of Croatia. Although the scope of those sources is enormous, they are not especially mentioned in this work, but they included numerous questionnaires, interviews with tourism experts and representatives of various institutions dealing with tourism, workshops with local authorities, various business associations, ngos etc. Many conclusions were based on the experiences of the author and other experts involved in the preparation of the Master Plan and discussions about various findings.
The Pressure from Commercial Accommodation Capacities
Tourism in Croatia is distributed unequally in the country, showing an extremely high concentration in
Table 2 Croatian Coastal Counties According to the Number of Beds and Number of Overnights in 2001 and 2011
County	Beds in 2001	Beds in 2011 Overnights in 2001 Overnights in 2011
	Total		%	Total	%		Total		%		Total	%
County of Istria	217	097	30.0	249,660	26.7	16	,135	,451	37.2	19	,095,401	31.6
County of Primorje-Gorski kotar	164	736	22.8	201,704	21.6	10	,143	,298	23.4	11	,741,692	19.5
County of Lika-Senj	20	086	2.8	33,831	3.6		770	,486	1.8	1	,697,107	2.8
County of Zadar	82;	368	11.4	113,556	12.1	3	,434	,798	7.9	6	,481,067	10.7
County of Šibenik-Knin	47	,831	6.6	65,763	7.0	2	,297	,213	5.3	3	,975,122	6.6
County of Split-Dalmatia	119:	267	16.5	169,358	18.1	6	,075	,612	14.0	10	,250,215	17.0
County of Dubrovnik-Neretva	47	,976	6.6	69,898	7-5	3	,128	■798	7-2	4	,775.i6i	7-9
Coastal Croatia	699	361	96.8	903,770	96.6	41	,985	,656	96.7	58	,015,765	96.1
Continental Croatia	23:	164	3.2	31,841	3.4	1	,418	,698	3.3	2	,338,510	3.9
Croatia Total	722	525	100.0	935,611	100.0	43	,404:	354	100.0	60	.354,275	100.0
Notes Source: Croatian Bureau of Statistics (2001b, 2001c, 2011b, 2011c).
the coastal zone. In seven coastal counties, representing 44% of the area and 33% of the country's population, there are 97% of total 935,611 beds in tourist accommodation capacities and 96% of total 60,354,275 overnights (see Tables 1 and 2). The remaining 13 continental counties and the city of Zagreb have only 3% of tourist accommodation capacities, although they comprise more than half of the total territory and two thirds of the population of Croatia.
Although the total number of beds in 2011 is 29% larger than in the year 2001 (935,611 in comparison with 722,525), only 12% of this growth reflects capacities in hotels and similar establishments. Therefore, the change is mainly the result of the growth of the accommodation capacities in households and camp sites, where previously unused capacities were made active again.
It is necessary to mention that the level of overnights in Croatia is currently approximately the same as 25 years ago, which is a result of the extreme decrease of tourism after the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. The consequence is that the real growth rate of the accommodation capacities was relatively low, with the result in small change of pressure in comparison with ten years ago.
The concentration of tourism accommodation capacities and overnights is much higher in the northern part of the Adriatic coastline, especially in the county
of Istria at the northwest. In this county, representing less than 5% of the territory and population of Croatia, there are 27% of accommodation capacities and 32% of total overnights are realised. The county of Istria is also the most developed county in Croatia after the City of Zagreb, and the remaining six most developed counties are those on the Adriatic Sea with developed tourism. Bearing in mind that the county of Istria and other coastal counties (except mainly mountainous county of Lika-Senj) show increases or at least lower decreases of the population than the country's average, it is evident that tourism is an engine of development for the country as a whole.
Besides the counties of Istria and Primorje-Gorski Kotar on the north, a high concentration of tourism is evident only in the largest and most populated coastal county of Split-Dalmatia in the southern part of the Adriatic. In the remaining four counties, the number of beds and overnights is lower, especially in sparsely populated county of Lika-Senj. An analysis of the concentrations oftourism in greater detail shows the highest concentration of tourism on the western Istrian coast in the county of Istria, and the remaining zones of higher concentration refer to rivieras of Opatija and Crikvenica and island of Krk in the county of Primorje-Gorski Kotar, the Makarska Riviera in the county of Split-Dalmatia county and in the town of Dubrovnik in the county of Dubrovnik-Neretva.
Table 3 The Number ofTourist Beds per 1 km of Coastline and per Square Kilometre in Croatian Counties in 2011
County	Length of	coastline*	Area in	Beds in	Beds per	Beds per
	km	%	km2	2011	1 kmt	1 km2
County of Istria	550	9.4	2,813	249,660	453.9	88.8
County of Primorje-Gorski kotar	1,085	18.6	3,588	201,704	185.9	56.2
County of Lika-Senj	210	3.6	5,353	33,831	161.1	6.3
County of Zadar	1,280	21.9	3,646	113,556	88.7	31.1
County of Šibenik-Knin	810	13.9	2,984	65,763	81.2	22.0
County of Split-Dalmatia	870	14.9	4,540	169,358	194.7	37.3
County of Dubrovnik-Neretva	1,030	17-7	1,781	69,898	67.9	39-2
Coastal Croatia	5,835	100.0	24,705	903,770	154.9	36.6
Continental Croatia	0	0.0	31,889	31,841	0.0	1.0
Croatia Total	5,835	100.0	56,594	935,611	160.3	16.5
Notes * According to the latest data from the Croatian Hydrographic Institute, the total length of Croatian coastline including islands is 6,278 kilometres. Since there are no available data about the accurate length of coastline by counties and the counties still use the old data in their official information, new data are not available for specific counties. The old data are also more useful for the calculations regarding pressure on the coastal strip, because they do not include small indentations of the coastline unimportant for the beach usage included in the newest calculations. t Of coastline. Sources: Croatian Bureau of Statistics (2001a, 2011a, 2011b).
The analysis of pressure on coastal zone measured by the number of tourist accommodation per kilometre of coastline shows that the difference between the county of Istria and the remaining parts of coastal Croatia is even higher. In the county of Istria, there is an average of 454 tourists beds per one kilometre of coastline, in the counties of Primorje-Gorski Ko-tar, Lika-Senj and Split-Dalmatia between 161 and 195, and in the remaining three southern counties of Zadar, Šibenik-Knin and Dubrovnik-Neretva between 68 and 89 beds (see Table 3).
The difference is mainly caused by geographical conditions, especially with the fact that in the county of Istria the majority of the coastline is on the mainland and is close to the main tourism markets. In other counties, the majority of the coastline is on islands and the terrain is more often steep and therefore less suitable for building accommodation capacities, especially in the two northern counties of Primorje-Gorski Kotar and Lika-Senj.
Another reason for this disproportion is the lower level of tourism development of four southern counties belonging to the historic province of Dalmatia, which is more distant from the main markets due to its
position in the southern part of Croatia. Therefore, the majority of tourist accommodation in Dalmatia is situated on the mainland near the larger cities of Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Dubrovnik and on the Makarska Riviera, and much less on the islands. This is different from the northern part of the Croatian Adriatic, where a larger share of coastal zones suitable for tourism development is used for that purpose, including the islands.
The pressure on the coastal areas measured by the number of beds on the total area of the particular counties shows similar results: the highest pressure is evident in the county of Istria, the second highest pressure is in the county of Primorje-Gorski Kotar and in all other counties much less. The low pressure in the counties of Šibenik-Knin and especially Lika-Senj is caused also by inclusion of relatively large areas of the hinterland, and the relatively high pressure in the county of Dubrovnik-Neretva due to its maritime orientation.
The more detailed analysis of the pressure on the coastal areas measured by the number of beds on the total surface of the towns and municipalities indicates an especially high concentration in smaller munici-
Table 4 Number of Dwellings Not Used for Primary Residence in Croatian Counties in 2001 and 2011
County	Dwellings not used	Change Share in total Dwellings
for primary residence	2001-2011, number of per 1 km of
	2001	2011	%	dwell. in 2011	coastline
County of Istria	17,906	30,556	70.6	22.8	55.6
County of Primorje-Gorski kotar	33,879	50,565	49.3	25.9	46.6
County of Lika-Senj	8,182	15,480	89.2	33.5	73.7
County of Zadar	28,240	49,451	75.1	36.7	38.6
County of Šibenik-Knin	16,948	36,778	117.0	39.8	45.4
County of Split-Dalmatia	28,092	43,549	55.0	17.1	50.1
County of Dubrovnik-Neretva	6,769	12,022	77-6	18.5	11.7
Coastal Croatia	140,016	238,401	70.3	25.8	40.9
Continental Croatia	76,461	95,592	25.0	7.2	0.0
Croatia Total	216,477	333.993	54-3	14.8	57-2
Notes Sources: Croatian Bureau ofStatistics (2001a, 2011a, 2012).
Funtana	2024
Crikvenica	1038
Medulin	904
Tar-Vabriga	676
Dugi Rat	559
BaškaVoda	526
Figure 1 The Municipalities with the Highest Number of Tourist Beds per km2 in Croatia in 2011
palities mainly in the northern part of the Adriatic. The most extreme case is the municipality of Funtana on the western Istria coast with a total 2,024 beds per square kilometre. High concentrations are evident in many other municipalities on Western Istrian coast, in the town of Crikvenica in the Kvarner Bay and on the island of Krk, connected with the mainland with the bridge (Figure 1). In the southern part of Croatia, higher concentrations refer almost only to the Makarska Riviera in Central Dalmatia, as probably the most attractive zone for bathing tourism in Dalmatia as a whole.
The Pressure from Secondary Homes
Besides the high pressure from accommodation capacities, the coastal zone is also the main target of building secondary homes. This kind of pressure has become especially prominent in the last ten years,
when the amount of secondary homes has greatly increased, as opposed to much slower increase of the number of commercial accommodation capacities.
Although the data about the number of secondary homes in the census of 2011 were not available during the preparation of this work, preliminary results about the number of dwellings not used for primary residence were. Since 84% of such dwellings in the census of 2001 refer to secondary homes, in the absence of more precise data this number can be relevant to the current situation and conclusions regarding future trends. In the 2001 census, the remaining 16% were dwellings used only for economic activities and for seasonal agriculture work. It is not expected that the final results will show a significant difference because in all previous censuses the difference between the first results and final data is usually smaller than 0.15%, which is considered unimportant for overall conclusions (Croatian Bureau of Statistics, 2001a, 2011a).
The total number of dwellings not used for primary residence in the year 2011 was 238,401 for the seven coastal counties and only 95,592 for the remaining 13 continental counties and the city of Zagreb. In comparison with the year 2001, the number of those dwellings increased by 54.3% for the whole Croatia and 70.3% for coastal counties (see Table 4). Although there are no data about the number of people staying
Vir	90.1%
Kolan	87%
Novalja	82%
Malinska	78%
Pirovac	78%
Karlobag	77%
Figure 2 The Municipalities with the Highest Share of Dwellings Not Used for Primary Residence in Total Number of Dwellings in 2011
in those dwellings, in almost all calculations for Croatia it is estimated to average four people per one secondary home. According to this estimation in coastal counties, during peak tourist season there are more than 900,000 people staying in those dwellings, most of them particularly close to the coastline. Since there were 833,507 beds in all commercial accommodation capacities in 2010, it is clear that the pressure from secondary homes is becoming the most serious threat to the carrying capacity of coastal areas in Croatia.
Another significant issue is the spatial distribution of dwellings not used for primary residence, which have a different distribution pattern than that of commercial accommodation capacities. The biggest number of those dwellings was in the county of Primorje-Gorski Kotar followed by the counties of Zadar and Split-Dalmatia, and the smallest number in the counties of Lika-Senj and Dubrovnik-Neretva. Regarding the length of coastline, the biggest relative concentration was in Lika-Senj county with an average 74 dwellings not used for primary residence per kilometre of coastline, and all other counties except Dubrov-nik-Neretva have available 39 to 56 such dwellings per kilometre of coastline.
The growth in the last ten years was especially fast in the counties of Šibenik-Knin and Lika-Senj. Those counties, as well as the county of Zadar between them, are showing also the highest share of dwellings not used for primary residence in the total number of dwellings. At the same time, the county of Dubrovnik-Neretva, in spite of relatively high growth in the last ten years, still has a relatively small number of such dwellings, a low share in the total number of dwellings and low density of those dwellings per kilometre of coastline. Although the county of Istria is the most de-
veloped in tourist terms, it has a relatively low number of such dwellings, both in total and relative terms.
The analysis of the spatial distribution of dwellings not used for primary residence on the local level is indicating that the main zones of concentration are on the island of Krk and Crikvenica Riviera in the county of Primorje-Gorski Kotar, on the islands of Pag and Vir in Lika-Senj and Zadar county, and in coastal areas near Zadar, Šibenik and Split in the three southernmost counties. Those areas also show high share of dwellings not used for primary residence in the total number of dwellings and high growth in the last ten years. The most extreme example is the island of Vir in the county of Zadar, where of a total of 12,750 dwellings, 11,453 or 90% are not used for permanent residence on an area of only 22 square kilometres.
Such development was caused mainly by the high interest for building secondary homes in Croatia in the period before the global economic crisis. The high growth was supported by favourable conditions regarding transport connections, i.e. building the 'Dalmatina' motorway from Zagreb to Dalmatia and finishing the previously partly built Zagreb-Rijeka motorway (important for the county of Primorje-Gorski Kotar). Therefore, the zones of the highest concentration and growth of secondary homes are areas easy to reach from the continent by motorway. That was a case with large stretches of coastline in Northern Dal-matia and on the islands connected with mainland by bridges, such as Krk, Pag and Vir. It is interesting that those areas were not simultaneously occupied with commercial accommodation capacities.
The relatively slower growth of the number of secondary homes in the counties of Primorje-Gorski Kotar and Split-Dalmatia between the years 2001 and 2011 was mainly caused by the occupation of most attractive building areas before the year 2001. At the same time, the low interest in building secondary homes in the county of Dubrovnik-Neretva is mainly a consequence of its position, as it is the most distant Croatian county from Zagreb and Western Europe and the only coastal county without motorway connections.
Considering such patterns of development, it is obvious that secondary homes were built generally everywhere possible in the coastal zone, with a conse-
quence of the occupation of most attractive areas suitable for commercial tourism and those with the most favourable transport connections. An additional problem is that the majority of secondary homes were built without respecting local traditions in architecture and often bypassing the planning procedures, with a consequence in reducing the value of many destinations for building hotels and similar establishments.
Main Conclusions
The coastal areas of Croatia are under physical pressure caused by building, both by commercial accommodation capacities and secondary homes. In the last ten years, the number of commercial accommodation capacities has been growing much more slowly than the number of secondary homes, and is mainly oriented to the already established tourism areas. In comparison with the period before 1991, the total growth was extremely small in comparison with all other Mediterranean countries, which is mainly a consequence of the slow recovery after the war in 1991. Considering the current global financial crisis and the strong decrease of interest in building new hotels and similar establishments, this kind of growth represents a relatively small threat for the sustainability of Croatian tourism.
Unlike the commercial accommodation capacities built mainly in the areas of general concentration of tourism from the past, secondaryhomes are built scattered in many small areas and throughout the country, but mainly in the narrow coastal zone. The biggest pressure was in the easy available and previously less occupied areas in the coastal zones with the highest potential for commercial tourism. That is causing a serious decrease of tourist attractiveness of many Croatian destinations, visible through the decrease in the number of tourist overnights in comparison with the period before 1991 in towns and municipalities like Crikvenica or Malinska exposed to extremely strong pressure for building secondary homes.
Such development leads to the conclusion that further spreading of secondaryhomes in attractive tourist areas will cause serious obstacles for future tourist development in many parts of Croatia and decrease the overall value of those areas for future investments in
commercial tourism. It is also evident that due to the occupation of large area of the most attractive coastal zones, the areas with a high concentration of secondary homes suffer from more serious saturation effects than the areas with a high concentration of commercial tourist capacities.
Besides visual pollution, areas with a high concentration of secondary homes are less productive than the areas with a larger share of commercial tourist accommodation and have more serious infrastructural problems. It is caused by generally extremely short average usage of secondary homes, often less than two months per year, causing serious pressure to local infrastructure in short summer period. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the future building of secondary homes in the areas where they are endangering economic development, to redirect such aspirations to the areas more distant from the coast and to properly manage the infrastructural needs before any new development.
The areas where secondary homes could represent lower threat are mainly in the interior of Croatia, which is at the moment neglected in terms of tourist development. In many such areas, the building of secondary homes could represent a positive development pattern, especially in rural mountain areas exposed to strong depopulation. Restoration and adaptation of abandoned permanent housing units can even represent a positive trend through enabling subsistence of basic infrastructure and working places in many remote rural areas facing demographic extinction.
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The Challenges for Responsible Recreation in the Protected Area of Triglav National Park: The Case of Mountain Bikers
Miha Kozorog
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Slovenia miha.kozorog@ff.uni-lj.si
Saša Poljak Istenič
Scientific Research Centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenia sasa.poljak@zrc-sazu.si
Triglav National Park is the largest protected area in Slovenia that is established for the conservation of an area's natural and cultural heritage. However, it is also destined for recreation that is subject to specific regulations in order to respect certain environmental guidelines. This ethnographic paper discusses strategies mountain bikers employ to negotiate the existing rules regarding the recreational use of the park's lands; in addition, the authors propose solutions to diminish their demands with the aim of ensuring quiet space for the park's wildlife.
Keywords: recreation management, recreation conflict, mountain biking, masculine heroism, wild animals, zoning of protected areas, Triglav National Park
Introduction
I, for instance, go to Rdeči Rob mountain [...] and in the sign-in book at Rdeči Rob you see that you were the first visitor at Rdeči Rob in fifteen days. At the moment, when you sit there on Rdeči Rob, the paraglider flies by twenty, thirty metres above you, and [...] at that moment you'll hear the great whistling of marmots because everything disappears in a moment [...]; one will whistle and the valley empties in a moment, the chamois will leave, everything withdraws, and simply, if anybody says this is not harmful, that is total nonsense for me.
This is a statement from an interview with a ranger in Triglav National Park (tnp).
Another ranger asserts:
Yes, disturbances certainly don't bring anything good for animal, because animals need, for
example, in the summer, autumn months, as much peace as possible to gather enough energy to survive through the winter, and if this is not the case, of course then there are problems. [...] Even in winter months [...], backcoun-try skiing which is also on the rise [...], then it is worse. Animals should use minimal energy in the winter months. And now, if they need to continually move away and run away from people [...] For instance, there are distinct areas where dwarf pine grows over the summer, there is forest that is impassable, but in the winter months, when all this is covered with snow, it is over-run [with skiers].
Regardless of the clear and sharp opposition between human and animal that is present in rangers' discourse, this ethnographic paper will not build on the wide range of anthropological inquiry concerning the conceptualisation of nature in human societies,
nor will it focus on nature/culture or animal/human dualisms (Descola, 1996; Guille-Escuret, 1998; Rappa-port, 1979; Škedelj Renčelj, 2010). We are also leaving questions about animal behaviour aside, or (to put it in other words), we simply take rangers and environmentalists at their word (Kopnina, 2012) that animals need space and peace. We will instead present our observations concerning outdoor recreation in Triglav National Park (tnp) in the case of mountain biking and question its management by rangers and park officials.
Although there are numerous studies on management strategies for solving potential conflicts between different social groups in natural environments and for improving user experiences (for the case of the relationship between mountain bikers and hikers, also discussed in this article, Watson, Williams & Daigle, 1991; Chavez, Winter & Baas, 1993; Horn, 1994; Moore, 1994; Cessford, 1995; Ramthun, 1995; Hoger & Chavez, 1998; Carothers, Vaske, & Donnelly, 2001; Chiu & Kriwoken, 2003; Cessford, 2003; Tumes, 2007; Mann & Absher, 2008; Walker & Shafer, 2011; Wang & Chang, 2012), qualitative research of recreational groups' strategies for appropriating such environments is rare.
This paper, based on the on-going research on actors and conflicts in the tnp,1 will present qualitative insights into mountain bikers' strategies for coping with the regulations within this particular protected area. Mountain bikers, driven by what we will term a 'heroism discourse' in the context of which they perform daring actions, will probably not stop appropriating the park's space. However, possible solutions may exist to neutralise the arguments they employ to use the park's lands in this manner, thus ensuring quiet space for the park's wildlife.
Methodology
In our study of the recreational activities being carried out in the park, we employed the ethnographic method (mainly semi-structured interviews and di-
1 The research is part of the basic research project Triglav National Park: Heritages, Actors, Strategies, Questions, and Solutions (J6-4310), financed by the Slovenian Research Agency.
rect observations of events) and carried out a discourse analysis of existing texts published about mountain biking in the tnp. Ethnographic fieldwork was carried out between July 2012 and April 2013. To gain insight into management issues regarding recreation and wildlife in the park, we have interviewed six of the existing twenty tnp rangers as well as five other tnp officials. We made thorough literal transcriptions in order to better understand interviewees' attitudes and emotions regarding recreation in protected areas, which enables citing the exact words they employ to directly convey their way of thinking and feeling. Consequently, we decided to essentially rely on their observations, because they are in regular contact with the territory, its wildlife, and visitors.
To understand mountain bikers' perspectives and ascertain their strategies, we first asked a ranger to help us analyse the tourist guides that are published by a specialised Slovenian publishing house, and which do not consider restrictions the tnp imposes on mountain biking within the park. The analysis of mountain bikers' positions, opinions and attitudes towards the regulations was made on the basis of their statements in mass media and diverse texts they have produced. We have also interviewed two representatives of the Commission for Backcountry Biking at the Slovenian Mountaineering Association and have carried out informal conversations with mountain bikers active in the vicinity of the park.
Lastly, with the aim of identifying the mechanisms of direct negotiations employed by sport groups and the tnp, we have attended three workshops with representatives of different recreational activities organised by the tnp during the preparation of the tnp management plan (Načrt upravljanja, 2012). Observing the attitudes and behaviour of all parties involved in the debates provided valuable insights into the relations not only among the tnp management personnel and sport groups, but also among different sport groups, which are shaped by the disproportion of privileges concerning the use of the park's lands.
Triglav National Park and Recreation
Triglav National Park is the only Slovenian national park. It is one of the earliest parks established in Eu-
rope, dating back to 1924, when it was founded as the Alpine Conservation Park. Its present borders were defined in 1981 by the Law on Triglav National Park. The park covers a predominantly uninhabited area in the south-eastern section of the Alps in the northwest of Slovenia, covering 880 square kilometres or 4% of the state's territory. Management of the tnp is the responsibility of the Triglav National Park Public Institution, which operates under the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment. The park aims to protect nature and conserve the cultural landscape, ensure sustainable development, promote opportunities for enjoyment, support research issues connected to the park, organise education activities and perform management tasks. It is also destined for recreation purposes, but it supports activities that are in compliance with the primary objective of the national park, i.e. nature protection.
Our research is especially current because adjustments of new tnp management plan were in progress at the time of writing this article. On the basis of the new tnp Act passed in 2010 ('Zakon o Triglavskem narodnem parku'), the plan's professional groundwork was prepared by the park's employees who presented the draft version (Načrt upravljanja, 2012) to the public (i.e. the municipalities with territory in the park, interest groups and inhabitants of the park) at numerous public forums and meetings in 2012 and 2013. The aim of these public presentations was to obtain additional comments and propositions from the public and adjust the management plan accordingly, insofar as the act would allow it.
The management plan also covers sports and recreation in the park. It envisages a set of regulations, such as time limitations for specific sports, the delimitation of specific areas for recreation, and proposes specific zones where certain activities would be forbidden. The employees have also organised meetings with different recreation groups to discuss the regulations set out in the plan and record the groups' suggestions regarding different uses of the protected area so as to possibly include them in the plan.
As one of the authors of the plan commented, the park decided for an interactive approach because sports:
[...] still appear where they are not allowed, because the park is divided into different areas, inside those areas there are even more special areas, and of course, we don't want that there. But we are putting an effort into the management plan, to fix it, try even harder [...] and to make a deal with people who practice those sports, where they can and where they cannot. And that's why there are still problems, firstly because they are not well informed, there is still not enough communication, or [they do it] on purpose. But it happens that they take advantage, that they go despite knowing it is forbidden. But slowly this will be settled.
Rangers claim that the number and diversity of sportspersons in the park is increasing to an enormous degree. One of the rangers even commented that sometimes he feels as if'[...] we are in an amusement park, not in Triglav National Park. It's just sports and nothing else.' However, the park has set a number of rules regarding the use of its territory by various types of recreational users. For example, mountaineering is allowed everywhere across the park, which means that one is allowed to walk wherever s/he wants. This permissiveness is rooted in the centuries old tradition of mountaineering in Slovenia (Šaver, 2005). Back-country skiing and ice climbing are regarded as part of mountaineering and are therefore also subject to more lenient regulation. However, not all outdoor sports have the same privilege and more recent ones are to a higher or lesser degree excluded from the park. For example, paragliders are allowed to take off and land in the park or to fly across the park's territory only within strictly delineated spots and corridors, which have yet to be defined by the tnp management plan. In addition, mountain biking is allowed on the roads of the tnp but is forbidden on walking paths or as a cross-country race.
In summary, the existing regulations represent different regimes of access and activity for different sports. There is a paradox of complete freedom, coexisting with quite strict rules and exclusions. As will be seen, this disproportion has a certain significant impact on the behaviour of sportsmen and the strate-
gies they employ. We will now examine one case for loosening the strict rules governing particular sport. In the case of mountain bikers, we will show how one group of sportsmen copes with biased rules.
Mountain Bikers' Strategies
Mountain biking is an activity frequently performed in the same environment and on the same system of pathways as mountaineering, and the encroachment of biking onto previously walking-only trails is a global trend. For this reason, there is a significant potential for 'recreational conflict' (Jacob & Schreyer, 1980; Tumes, 2007). As Kirsty Tumes comments, 'Changes in recreation values along with how people recreate, together with a move away from traditional activities to ones employing new technologies that are mechanistic in nature, have led to competition and in some cases conflict between recreation activity groups over land and water resources' (2007, p. 45). Although some studies show that there are fewer conflicts between walkers and bikers than generally imagined (Chiu & Kriwoken, 2003) or that the number of conflicts decreases after face-to-face encounters on shared trails (Cessford, 2003), this intergroup relationship is an essential dimension ofmountain bikers' attitude towards the protected area of the tnp.
However, the focus of this paper is not on the interactions between bikers and hikers as such, but on how this relation is instrumentalised for mountain bikers' strategic purposes. The status of mountaineering, an activity with fewer restrictions in the park and a long tradition in Slovenia, functions as a firm reference point for mountain bikers' and other sportspersons' claims on their right for recreational space in the park. Mountain bikers thus regularly compare and connect their illegal activity with this legal one.
Mountain bikers have not easily accepted not being allowed to use certain walking paths; consequently, they have launched a campaign against existing restrictions andrules. Althoughthedecreethat prohibits riding a bike in 'natural environments' is not limited to the tnp ('Uredba o prepovedi vožnje,' 1995-2001), mountain bikers have often expressed their dissatisfaction with the decree precisely in this area (Drofenik, 2012). They are not satisfied with existing roads in the
park and want to go beyond such easy rides. Quite a few employees at the tnp are also well aware of the fact that mountain bikers are in many aspects right, because the existing regulations for mountain biking indeed are counter-productive:
Riding in natural environments is forbidden everywhere in Slovenia, that is one decree, and it is forbidden. [...] And that is the situation now, which doesn't make sense, and it is better to define where they will be allowed to drive, not like it is now, because now it is not allowed anywhere, neither on mountain roads nor mule tracks, anywhere in the natural environment; however, everybody does it.
In the case of the tnp, the mountain bikers' campaign against the strict rules probably started spontaneously when they were stopped by the tnp rangers and when minor conflicts between the two actors have arisen. As one of the rangers recalls, sometimes there was a lot of cursing, but in other cases bikers would argue against the restrictions, even claiming that a bicycle causes much less soil erosion than a grazing cow. However, things have gradually changed. The mountain bikers community has become increasing aware of the limits of rangers' legal authority, and today, for example, many are well informed that a ranger cannot stop a moving vehicle and therefore is obliged to let a biker in motion to pass him/her by.
Part of the mountain bikers' negotiation is also based on mass media representations of mountain biking in the tnp. In a recently published issue of Bike Magazin, a bikers' community magazine, the author, describing one route in the tnp, states that 'unfortunately, the laws of the tnp don't allow us to use it, although there is really no harm' (Ogrinec, 2012, p. 62). There are also two more statements, or we could say warnings, about tnp rangers examining the area. This was not the first such public negotiation with the tnp.
In 2007, these minor events evolved into an organised campaign. Although mountain bikers sometimes define their relationship with mountaineers as one of antagonism (which is actually often the case, because
the latter accuse the first of endangering walkers on the mountain paths), they have succeeded in joining the Mountaineering Association of Slovenia, the umbrella organisation of all mountaineering activities in Slovenia, under which they have established the Commission for Backcountry Biking. According to a well-informed representative of the commission, the rise of mountain biking in the Slovenian Alps can be linked to the publication of the first mountain bikers' guide in Slovenia by Marko Paternu (1997). After the massive and rapid growth ofmountain biking in Slovenia in the 2000s, when it became clearly evident that every third mountaineer is also a mountain biker,2 some representatives of the Mountaineering Association of Slovenia proposed the establishment of the Commission for Backcountry Biking to educate mountain biking tour guides and to draft rules for the proper behaviour of mountain bikers. Although such moves could be interpreted as the establishment of mechanisms for resolving problems prevalent in the growing mountain bikers' scene in Slovenia and as a means for educating mountain bikers, they should also be viewed as strategies of negotiation. Being part of the Mountaineering Association of Slovenia means occupying an established position in an organisation with a very long tradition and with enormous symbolic and social capital in Slovenia, an organisation that can gradually assure pivotal changes regarding regulations for mountain biking on the walking paths. Although our claims on certain strategic moves could seem bold, they are also supported by changes at the linguistic or discursive level: adopting the label 'backcountry' from moun-
2 This statistical data was obtained in a survey conducted among mountaineers and presented to us during the interview with a representative of the Commission for Backcoun-try Biking. However, a review of global trends in mountain biking, done by Burgin and Hardiman (2012a, p. 925-926), shows that this sport is escalating worldwide. For Europe, they give the following data: 'In 2001, 6.3 million people in the uk, more than 10% of the population, participated in mountain biking/off-road cycling more than once annually, and approximately 6% participated regularly [...] Mountain biking is also popular in Germany (38.9% of 7.2 million recreational cyclists), and there are an estimated 800,000 mountain bikers in Switzerland and Austria.'
taineering vocabulary embeds the activity within the mountaineering milieu. In addition, mountain bikers have started to cooperate with mountaineers in blazing mountain paths, which is another strategic step towards loosening strict rules.
In light of this situation, our question regarding media pressure and strategic alliances established by mountain bikers is what were and what should be the reaction of the tnp regarding such activities. A comparison with similar cases, including the media campaign of kayakers on the Yellowstone National Park to open up certain territories for their activities, analysed by Michael J. Yochim (2005), convinces us that there is a very strong possibility that mountain bikers will continue using several forms of pressure to convince tnp officials to loosen the park's rules, to make the rules for bikers similar to those for mountaineers, thus allowing bikers to enter the park's core. We think that tnp officials could learn from their Yellowstone National Park colleagues, who have for decades confronted various campaigns of kayakers.
What about the official stance of the tnp? When an article about mountain biking in the tnp was published in the supplement of the widely read Slovenian magazine Stop (Guzej, 2005), there was no reaction from the tnp. This is even more surprising considering that the author describes a highly problematic ride in the central area of the park, and that he writes about ignoring and fighting with a tnp ranger whom he and his friends met on the way, as well as about the general stupidity of tnp rules. The author concludes his article with the following words (Guzej, 2005, p. 10):
Lastly, the inventory of completed work: 3000 vertical meters at 70 kilometres long route. The route whose charm also lies in the fact that it is strictly forbidden. As conscious citizens, we agree that the laws are made to be followed. But if they are stupid, they need to be persistently broken and proven to be impractical so that they can be changed. Who (with enough power and influence) will finally show enough courage to give the initiative to at least mitigate the decree banning cycling in the natural environment?!
An indicative case of a certain ignorance on the part of tnp authorities towards such provocations is also represented by the recently published mountain biker's guide through the Soča River Valley (Leban, 2009). It is also a complicated case since the author of the guide invited the tnp to collaborate in the process of its formation. The author even proposed that the director of the tnp write a preface with an ecological message. However, although one of the rangers, acquainted with the Soča River Valley part of the park, critically commented on and objected to several trails proposed by the author, the latter nevertheless published those same trails in the book. The same ranger then succeeded in convincing the park's director not to write the ecological preface to the book. However, although the director did not write the preface, the tnp did not react in any way to this publication with con-testable content. Since they did not voice any objections, the guide was also translated into English.
The publication of such a book is, of course, highly problematic. As one of the rangers reports, when he finds a biker who is making an illegal trip but shows him a book in which all the instructions for such trips are published, he cannot just penalise him/her. Once a certain trail is published in a book, it is difficult for the tnp to dispute its use by the book's readers. This case can also serve as an example of how tourism is in-strumentalised for negotiating the park's rules. As one of mountain biking enthusiasts from the vicinity of the tnp explained during one conversation, the rules could be beaten precisely by the power of tourism. If, for example, one starts a mountain biking festival that manages to attract a few thousand participants in a few years (and that is not in any way surprising to this informant, given the popularity of mountain biking in Europe and the world) then the tourism impacts will 'force' the tnp to mitigate the restrictions. Such scenarios demonstrate both the influence of the tourism industry and the self-confidence of interest groups 'globally' connected by the internet (Burgin & Hardiman, 2012a, p. 931):
The power of advocacy groups, either formal (e.g. specific sports associations) or informal (e.g. web fora), has become increasingly stron-
ger and more sophisticated, aided by the reach of the internet. Their demands are also likely to be supported by the tourism and retailing industries, which recognise the commercial potential of this large, affluent demographic.
Today, of course, the internet is the most effective communication tool among recreational sportsmen as well as a negotiation tool with the park and the general public. However, according to a tnp official, the park currently does not even have enough staff, proper legal knowledge or satisfactorily defined regulations to effectively react to those violations of the rules that are publicly presented on the internet and in other publications:
There is a bad mood when we see something like that, that somebody publishes a guide to pathless terrain and so on, without asking us anything. Now, I have to say that [...] we don't have anybody employed to deal just with this area, you somehow can't, you don't have time to put energy into this, because you should collect all the data first: who put it on the internet, who is promoting this, who does it, where did it happen, photographs that document that it really happened. You need all this evidence to sanction somebody, to put an end to this, and you can't do it in addition to the regular work you have, and that always somehow fades away.
The internet represents one particular aspect of the process of appropriation of the park's lands by groups performing outdoor recreation. If the publication of a certain trail in a book can be defined as a milestone in this process, internet forums and printed journal articles can be viewed as a fuel that drives the practitioners further into the park's inner areas.
For example, as the case of an illegal tour called the 'Bohinj Massacre' demonstrates (even the name of the tour itself indicates the extremeness of the ride), writing about it on the internet means announcing one's heroic performance and thus challenging others to repeat it. It is here that we can search for the discourse informing adrenaline activities, which is, as we will at-
tempt to show, inherent to mountain bikers' strategies to access the core of the park.
Recreation in the Light of'Heroism Discourse'
As Shelley Burgin and Nigel Hardiman (2012a) argue, visitors' motives for visiting protected areas have historically changed from 'rest, relaxation and reinvigora-tion' with low ecological impacts to the recent trends that increased numbers of persons undertaking more active recreation, e.g. 'extreme sports,' therefore having higher ecological impacts and requiring proper management. This change, of course, does to a great extent concern relationships to park animals and those areas of the park where animals are supposed to live in peace (Burgin & Hardiman, 2012b). However, our research is primarily focused on people. It originates in questioning a discourse that fuels the so-called 'adrenalin sports,' which defines certain areas of the park as virginal lands that are yet to be conquered.
Although outdoor sports are sometimes connected to environmentalism discourses, which promote nature-friendly recreation, they also address people to perform 'heroic actions,' i.e. daring activities that no one or only a few have done before. Outdoor sports adventurers, in this paper examined via the case of mountain bikers, therefore often seek unconquered or challenging paths. Technological developments further stimulate practitioners to search for 'new' territories (Ewert & Shultis, 1999), and (as we have attempted to show) this heavily affects social relationships in outdoor recreation (Devall & Harry, 1981). In these activities, there is also an inherent element of competition that stimulates the participants to exceed the achievements of forerunners (Burgin & Hardiman, 2012a, 923). Certain publications further encourage people to behave heroically.
In regard to mountain bikers, Paul Rosen (1993, p. 499) writes as follows:
A typical example of [...] [de-modernizing] impulse [i.e., 'a resistance to modernization which is nevertheless at the same time a product of it'] is the search for wilderness areas uncon-taminated by modernization. This is perhaps the most important theme in mountain biking
discourse, and was the initial motivation of the clunker group [the pioneers of mountain biking] who, according to one writer, were 'a pack of hardcore hippie bike bums' who had moved from San Francisco into rural Marin County 'to live less frenetic, more laid-back lives.' It is still a prevalent theme, with articles and advertisements drawing on notions of pioneers, frontiers and a relationship to nature which seeks at the same time both to escape to it as a haven from the city, but also to conquer it using the very technology that drives the desire to escape. Richard Ballantine writes that '[i]n any activity, there is always an edge of adventure, always a place where people are wild and free.' In mountain biking, this edge is 'a line of discovery and testing new limits.'
Fuelled with this discourse, we think there is a certain process happening in the park that could convert it into an all-encompassing 'adrenaline playground.' As mountain bikers regularly proclaim, what they do is not for just anybody. The previously cited article from stop magazine is, for example, pervaded with a discourse about 'heroism' in these bikers' actions (Guzej, 2005, 8):
We are lured by the green below us, but we struggle every higher towards our first goal, using the narrow mountain road that is at some points carved into the steep rocks; steel cables embedded in the walls ensure a safer passage. There's no more kidding. Maximum alertness and vigilance are needed. Carelessness would quickly end tens and even hundreds of meters below.
Such masculine heroism (Gilchrist, 2006; Vivanco & Gordon, 2006; Wesely & Gaarder, 2004), the quest for conquering and then presenting (publishing) the achievement of penetrating into new, virginal and dangerous territories, is the fuel that makes the process of 'disneyfication' of the park irreversible. If yesterday a biker's success was driving the slopes on the edge of the park, today tnp rangers regularly find bikers
on tops of various mountains. When a certain trail is conquered, it is time to find new ones. Therefore, we are concerned that there truly are no limits since, as the environmental writer Todd Wilkinson suggests in the case of Yellowstone kayaking (in Yochim, 2005: 61), the point is 'to pump up the ego and worship at the Holy Alter [sic] of me!, me!, me!' So-called 'adrenaline junkies' and 'thrill seekers' will thus probably always search for virginal lands to conquer, and the tnp will still appear as a 'promised land' for them. However, as we will propose, there is a way to at least diminish the claims of the majority of mountain bikers for their right to use this territory and thus to prevent it from becoming an outdoor recreational Disneyland.
Conclusion
Burgin and Hardiman (2012a, p. 932), authors of many scientific articles on recreation in protected areas, argue that:
[M]echanisms available to land managers to minimise environmental degradation include a range of legislative arrangements and educational programmes. Enforcement typically relies on regulation, focused on controlling behaviour with the potential for punitive action. This approach is frequently counterproductive and costly to enforce. A more effective approach to minimising the environmental impact is to employ education programmes aimed at raising awareness of the issues of environmental degradation.
At the same time, these two authors were sceptical about the potential of education to minimise the effects of expanding recreational adventurism. Therefore, they propose diverting the gaze of recreation practitioners from protected areas to newly designed areas for outdoor recreation (2012a, 932-933). The tnp also acted in this direction and gave consent to the establishment of a bike park at the winter ski area above the Bohinj Lake; the Vogel Mountain Bike Park was officially opened in September 2012. The park also weighs the possibility of opening certain walking paths on the edge of the park for mountain bikers.
However, we doubt that such arrangements could satisfy the appetites of practitioners. As we are attempting to show, there is a search for challenge, for 'unconquered' territories and for 'real' wilderness in the discourse that drives the mountain biking scene, so alternative areas in our opinion cannot turn mountain bikers away from the park. Instead, we would like to suggest a different solution (unfortunately, against the recommendations of Burgin and Hardiman, a restriction), which cannot 'drive away' mountain bikers themselves but would nullify the most influential discursive argument they employ to claim access to the protected area. We would like to suggest the implementation of equal restrictions for all forms of recreation, including mountaineering.
The tnp is currently in the process of spatialisa-tion, which means that, together with different actors in this territory, it is involved in preparing the rules for different regimes of the use of its lands. One of the ideas for this new spatial plan, presented in the new tnp management plan, is the introduction of so-called 'peaceful zones,' which implies limited access to certain areas. We salute this proposal, but find it insufficient, because peaceful zones as they are planned now do not apply to all groups of sportspersons, especially not mountaineers. Mountain bikers regularly compare themselves to mountaineers, querying why should be something forbidden for them when they cause less harm to the environment than mountaineers. Their argument is that one group is privileged while the other is marginalised. This is indeed not particularly democratic, although it is true that mountaineering has a long tradition and that biking is probably a more quiet activity (and is surely faster) than walking, thus causing bigger shocks for wild animals when they meet. However, in our opinion, a solution of closing certain zones for everyone for the sake of animal procreation while at the same time strictly defining different paths for different types of users could silence such inter-group referentiality with demands for opening new territories as in the case of bikers and hikers. Moreover, mountaineers are not innocent either. They also form their own heroism discourse and publish descriptions of walking or skiing in deserted areas (Habjan, 2009; Jenčič, 2002), which
are becoming increasingly crowded exactly because of those publications. However, if and when the tnp attempts to implement the establishment of 'proper' peaceful zones, this will not happen without difficulty. We are quite sure that the Mountaineering Association of Slovenia would not accept such an idea open heartedly, and the association represents a potential obstacle because of its political power, its arguments of mountaineering tradition and the democratic accessibility to mountaineering by both the rich and the poor. However, as tnp authorities have effectively solved a situation in the case of canyoning by defining three streams within the tnp where this activity can be performed in certain months, they should also be able to demarcate areas for other recreational activities. Otherwise, tnp authorities will not be able to deal with new adrenalin sports that are emerging daily (such as base jumping) which are so recent that they have not been included in the 2010 act, and therefore represent legal grey areas that cannot be managed in this manner. In peaceful zones that would apply to everyone, i.e. to any human activity (except to the park's expert administration), however, such new sports would not represent grey areas, but would simply be forbidden.
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Odgovorni turizem pred »odgovornim turizmom«? Nekaj zgodovinskih vzrokov sedanjih vprašanj in nesoglasij
John K.Walton
Članek obravnava zgodovinske predhodnike pojava, ki mu danes pravimo »odgovorni turizem« in pri tem upošteva povezavo tega pojma s pojmom »trajnostni turizem«. Predhodnike »odgovornega turizma« od sredine osemnajstega stoletja naprej smo poiskali in preučili z metodo primerjalne študije primerov. Primeri vključujejo Lake District in obmorsko letovišče Whitby v Angliji, špansko zdravilišče Monda-riz Balneario, razvoj »socialnega turizma« v Mar del Plata (Argentina) in atlantski otok Lanzarote (Kanarski otoki). Vsak od prikazanih primerov obravnava različne, vendar prekrivajoče se primere »odgovornega turizma«, članek pa sklene ugotovitev, da je (kljub tveganju, ki se mu pri iskanju zgodovinskih korenin sodobnih pojmovanj ne moremo izogniti) uporabljena pot prava in da vodi k boljšemu razumevanju današnjih pojmovanj; tudi zato, ker je vsak primer obravnavan glede na zaplete in nasprotovanja, ki so se pri njem pojavili. Obsežna študija primera v sklepnem delu članka, ki obravnava razvoj otoka Lanzarote kot cilja turističnih potovanj v letih 1950 in 1960 in vlogo umetnika Cesarja Manriqueja pri tem, še posebej dobro ponazarja, kako so se, v ugodnih kulturnih in političnih razmerah, ključne sestavine pojmovanja »odgovornega turizma« zakoreninile in razvile dolgo pred dejanskim oblikovanjem tega pojmovanja, kar daje načrtovalcem politik odlično priložnost za učenje iz zgodovinskega primera.
Ključne besede: odgovorni turizem; zgodovina, cilji turističnih potovanj;
literarni turizem; obmorski turizem; zdravilišča Academica Turistica, 6(1), 3-16
Konkurenčnost turističnih destinacij in odgovorni turizem
Gorazd Sedmak in Tina Kociper
Prispevek obravnava konkurenčnost turistične destinacije v povezavi z destinacij-skim managementom in družbeno odgovornostjo podjetij. Prvenstveni cilj predstavljene raziskave je bil oceniti splošno konkurenčnost severnojadranske obmorske destinacije Portorož in identificirati, pri katerih elementih ponudbe lahko destina-cija izboljša svojo konkurenčno pozicijo. Drugi cilj pa je bil preveriti, ali je Portorož usmerjen k odgovornemu turizmu. Destinacije, ki prakticirajo odgovorni turizem, so namreč v več pogledih bolj konkurenčne. Rezultati raziskave kažejo na to, da ima destinacija več neizkoriščenih potencialov za izboljšanje svoje konkurenčnosti in večje zavezanosti odgovornemu turizmu.
Ključne besede: konkurenčnost; odgovorni turizem; obmorska destinacija; Portorož Academica Turistica, 6(1), 17-24
Empirična raziskava o ekološki usmerjenosti obiskovalcev Portoroža v nizki sezoni
Helena Nemec Rudež and Petra Zabukovec Baruca
Ekološko usmerjen pristop destinacije zahteva znanje in razumevanje o ekološki naravnanosti turistov, ki obiskujejo destinacijo. Članek raziskuje ekološko usmerjenost turistov v slovenski obmorski destinaciji Portorož, pri čemer se osredotoča na nizko sezono. Natančneje, članek raziskuje ekološko ozaveščenost turistov in njihovo zaznavanje ekološke usmerjenosti Portoroža. Strukturirani anketni vprašalniki so bili uporabljeni za intervjuvanje turistov. Raziskava je ugotovila, da turisti Portoroža ocenjujejo ekološko usmerjenost destinacije pri sami izbiri destinacije, niti kot pomembno niti kot nepomembno. Ekološko usmerjenost Portoroža ocenjujejo kot povprečno. Raziskane so bile tudi primerjave med hotelskimi in nehotelskimi gosti. Ključne besede: ekoturizem; destinacija; ekološka usmerjenost Academica Turistica, 6(1), 25-29
Kakovost življenja prebivalcev Indianapolisa: vloga kulturnega turizma in občutek pripadnosti
Carina King, Sotiris Hji-Avgoustis, Jinmoo Heo in Inheok Lee
Stategije oživljanja mest in kulturni turizem se vse bolj povezujejo (Worpole, 1991); še posebej kulturni turizem je vedno bolj uporabljan kot strateški način izpolnjevanja potreb tako obiskovalcev kot lokalnega prebivalstva (Yang in Shin, 2008). Mesto Indianapolis se je osredotočilo na umetnost in kulturo ter skuša z vrsto strateških pobud na področju kulturnega turizma, s katerimi obiskovalcem ponuja boljša kulturna doživetja, izboljšati kakovost življenja v mestu in spodbujati občutek pripadnosti med prebivalci. Primer Indianapolisa bi lahko pritrdil mnenjem, da lahko dediščinski in kulturni turizem okrepita lokalne vrednote, prispevata k pozitivni družbeni naravnanosti in okrepita občutek pripadnosti lokalni skupnosti (Coccos-sis, 2009). Pričujoča študija poskuša z raziskavo povezav med zavestjo prebivalcev Indianapolisa, zaznanimi koristmi in užitki kulturnega turizma z občutkom pripadnosti skupnosti in kakovostjo življenja z uporabo strukturnega modela izmeriti podporo javnosti mestnim strategijam na področju kulturnega turizma. V razsi-kavi je sodelovalo 350 prebivalcev Indianapolisa, ki so v letu 2011 obiskali kulturne v športne prireditve v mestnem središču; vzorčenje je bilo verjetnostno. Kazalniki primernosti postavljenega modela nakazujejo, da je bil model ustrezen. Prebivalci, ki imajo močnejši občutek pripadnosti in so pripoznali večje ugodnosti kot njihovi someščani, so pogosteje bolje ocenili kakovost svojega življenja. Turistični delavci na področju razvoja bi morali prebivalce vključiti v načrtovanje, jim učinkoviteje pojasniti posredne ugodne učinke na lokalno skupnost in razložiti, kako bodo ublažili negativne posledice, če bodo te sploh nastale.
Ključne besede: kakovost življenja, kulturni turizem, občutek pripadnosti Academica Turistica, 6(1), 32-38
Merjenje uspešnosti v hotelirstvu: primerjava statističnih in finančnih dosežkov
Tanja Planinc, Štefan Bojnec in Gordana Ivankovič
V prispevku smo analizirali dosežke hotelirstva v Sloveniji, ki so prikazani s statističnimi gibanji in nekaterimi finančnimi rezultati. Analiza je bila izvedena za obdobje 1995-2011. Ugotovili smo, da je hotelirstvo doseglo dobre rezultate na področju števila prihodov, prenočitev in nastanitvenih zmogljivosti. Obenem pa smo ugotovili, daje slovensko hotelirstvo doseglo slabše finančne rezultate že pred letom 2008, ko se je v Sloveniji začela ekonomska recesija in finančna kriza. Analiza je pokazala, da zgolj pri nekaterih finančnih in statističnih indikatorjih obstaja statistično značilna povezanost.
Ključne besede: hotelirstvo, Slovenija, merjenje uspešnosti, finančni indikatorji,
statistični podatki Academica Turistica, 6(1), 39-48
Zaznava vplivov turizma na slovenski obali med domačini
Ksenija Vodeb
Turizem je doživeta izkušnja, ki nastaja med turisti, domačini in destinacijo. Obstaja obsežen korpus literature, ki obravnava odnos med zaznavanjem vplivov turizma pri domačinih in stopnjo turističnega razvoja. Nekateri avtorji opozarjajo na dvojno podobo turizma, zlasti glede koristi in stroškov za lokalno skupnost; drugi poročajo o turizmu kot dvoreznem meču za lokalno skupnost. Vendar pa zgolj seznanjenost s turističnimi vplivi ni zadostna - potrebno je znanje, kako vključiti te podatke v razvojne strategije turizma in pomagati menedžmentu pri napovedovanju in načrtovanju prihodnjega razvoja turizma. Lokalna skupnost, ki sodeluje pri načrtovanju turizma, ima pozitivnejši odnos, spodbuja razvoj turizma in ima boljše možnosti za aktivno udeležbo kakor skupnost, ki ima pasivno vlogo v razvoju na de-stinaciji. Zato mnogi avtorji predlagajo podroben razmislek in upoštevanje mnenja ter odnosa domačinov pri procesu načrtovanja turizma. Članek temelji predvsem na rezultatih kvantitativne raziskave in predstavlja del širše študije, ki bo s kvalitativnim pristopom nadgradila proučevanje turističnih vplivov na slovenski obali. Prispevek obravnava zaznavanje družbeno-kulturnih vplivov turizma med prebivalstvom na slovenski obali. Kvantitativna raziskava med 711 domačini kaže na pozitiven odnos do turizma, še posebej izstopajo družbeno-kulturni vplivi, kot so širša ponudba kulturnih prireditev, spoštovanje dediščine in bogatenje izkušenj lokalne skupnosti. Ključne besede: družbeno-kulturni vplivi turizma; slovenska obala; trajnosti razvoj
turizma; družbena nosilna zmogljivost Academica Turistica, 6(1), 49-60
Abstracts in Slovene
PoVZETKI v SLovENŠČINi
Pritisk na obalno območje kot dejavnik vzdržnosti hrvaškega turizma
Zoran Klaric
Med mnogimi vidiki vzdržnosti turizma je treba posebej omeniti pritisk na obalno območje, tj. število nastanitvenih enot glede na dolžino obale in celotno površino posameznih geografskih enot (županij, občin, mest ali otokov). Pričujoče delo popisuje spremembe pritiska na obalno območje na celotni hrvaški obali, s čimer želimo prikazati razlike med pritiskom na obalni pas in na celotno območje obalnih administrativnih enot. Prvi del članka analizira število postelj v primerjavi z dolžino obale in skupno površino hrvaških župnij, z nekaj približki za manjše prostorske enote. Drugi del članka predstavlja analizo podatkov o počitniških bivališčih v primerjavi s podatki za prejšnje obdobje, s čimer želimo pokazati, da je pritisk tovrstnih nastanitev na mnogih območjih nevarnejši od pritiska komercialnih turističnih nastanitev. V sklepnem delu so povzete prejšnje ugotovitve s poudarkom na razlikah med raznimi oblikami pritiska na obalna območja; navedena so tudi področja, ki so pod posebnim pritiskom turizma in stanovanjske gradnje. Ključne besede: trajnostni razvoj; pritisk na obalna območja; hrvaška obala;
dolžina obale; nastanitvene zmogljivosti; počitnička bivališča Academica Turistica, 6(1), 61-70
Izzivi odgovorne rekreacije v zaščitenem območju Triglavskega narodnega parka: primer gorskih kolesarjev
Miha Kozorog in Saša Poljak Istenič
Triglavski narodni park je največje zaščiteno območje v Sloveniji, namenjeno tudi rekreaciji, ki pa je zaradi okoljskih vplivov podvržena določenim prepisom. Pričujoči etnografski prispevek razpravlja o pogajalskih strategijah gorskih kolesarjev za odpravo omejitev rekreacije v parku in predlaga rešitve za zmanjšanje njihovih zahtev po rekreacijskem prostoru z namenom zagotovitve mirnih con za divje živali.
Ključne besede: upravljanje rekreacijskih dejavnosti; rekreacijski konflikti;
gorsko kolesarstvo; moški heroizem; divje živali; coniranje zaščitenih območij; Triglavski narodni park Academica Turistica, 6(1), 71-80
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list. Full titles of journals are required (not their abbreviations).
Citing References in Text
One author. Tourism innovation specific is mentioned (Brooks, 2010). Thomas (1992) had concluded ... Two authors. This result was later contradicted (Swar-brooke & Horner, 2007). Price and Murphy (2000) pointed out . . . Three to five authors, first citation. Laroche, Bergeron, and Barbaro-Forleo (2001) had found ... It was also discovered (Salamon, Sokolowski, Haddock, & Tice, 2013)... Three to five authors, subsequent citations. Laroche et
al. (2009) or (Salamon et al., 2011). Six or more authors. Wolchik et al. (1999) or (Wolchik et al., 1999).
If two references with six or more authors shorten to the same form, cite the surnames of the first author and of as many of the subsequent authors as necessary to distinguish the two references, followed by a coma and et al.
List several authors for the same thought or idea with separation by using a semicolon: (Kalthof et al., 1999; Biegern & Roberts, 2005).
For detailed instructions please see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2009, Chapter 6).
Examples of Reference List Books
American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, d c: Author. Swarbrooke, J., & Horner, S. (2007). Consumer behaviour in tourism. Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Journals
Laroche, M., Bergeron, J., &Barbaro-Forleo, G. (2001). Targeting consumers who are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 18(6), 503-520.
Wolchik, S. A., West, S. G., Sandler, I. N., Tein, J.-Y., Coatsworth, D., Lengua, L., ... Griffin, W. A. (2000). An experimental evaluation of theory-based mother and mother-child programs for children of divorce. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 843-856.
Newspapers
Brooks, A. (2010, 7 July). Building craze threatens to end Lanzarote's biosphere status. Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/ environment/nature/building-craze-threatens-to -end-lanzarotes-biosphere-status-2020064.html
Chapters in Books
Poirier, R. A. (2001). A dynamic tourism development model in Tunisia: Policies and prospects. In Y. Aposotolopoulos, P. Loukissas, & L. Leontidou (Eds.), Mediterranean tourism (pp. 197-210). London, England: Routledge.
Conference Proceedings
Price, G., & Murphy, P. (2000). The relationship between ecotourism and sustainable development: A critical examination. In M. Ewen (Ed.), cauthe 2000: Peak performance in tourism and hospitality research; Proceedings of the Tenth Australian Tourism and Hospitality Research Conference (pp. 189202). Bundoora, Australia: La Trobe University.
PaperPresentation
Thomas, J. (1992, July). Tourism and the environment: An exploration of the willingness to pay of the average visitor. Paper presented at the conference Tourism in Europe, Durham, England.
Theses and Dissertations
Sedmak, G. (2006). Pomen avtentičnosti turističnega proizvoda: primer destinacije Piran (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Working Papers
Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., Haddock, M. A., & Tice, H. S. (2013). The state of global civil society volunteering: Latest findings from the implementation
of the un nonprofitt handbook (Comparative Nonprofit Sector Working Paper No. 49). Baltimore, md: Johns Hopkins University.
Web Pages
Croatian Bureau of Statistics. (2001). Census ofpopu-lation, households and dwellings. Retrieved from http://www.dzs.hr/Eng/censuses/Census2001/ census.htm
For detailed instructions please see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2009, Chapter 7).
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