Monitoring of tourism sustainability – Croatia sustainable tourism observatory
The major objective of observatory establishment is systematic measurement and monitoring of tourism sustainability in Croatia. The observatory will measure and monitor tourism sustainability in the most touristified region of Croatia. It is coastal region, administratively marked as NUTS-2 Adriatic Croatia by European Union nomenclature. This region is under the highest impact of the most developed type of tourism in Croatia, 'sun and sea' tourism. It seems reasonable to start measuring tourism sustainability exactly in there. To that end, we are planning to apply ETIS, the European Tourism Indicator System for sustainable destination management, developed by the European Commission. Although there are many practical and useful systems of indicators for measuring tourism sustainability, one of them is indicator list recommended by UNWTO, we have decided to use ETIS due to our compliance with the recommendations of European Union whose member Croatia is.
In measuring and monitoring procedures, CROSTO adopts the European Tourism Indicator System (ETIS) for sustainable destination management, developed by the European Commission. It has been decided to use ETIS due to Croatia's compliance, as a European Union member state, with EU recommendations. The ETIS indicators which have been used cover all the mandatory sustainability issues selected by the UNWTO. Along with measuring and monitoring tourism sustainability at the regional level, the intention is to promote the application of ETIS among local communities all over Croatia. In fact, there are plans for fostering the appliance of ETIS on municipal level. It has to be noted, however, that this heavily depends on cooperation among all relevant stakeholders, especially the National Tourist Board and the Croatian Ministry of Tourism which have mandatory power over local tourist destinations. The final goal of CROSTO is the aspiration to grow into a regional monitoring center coordinating many local observatories all over Croatia, all of them applying ETIS for measuring and monitoring tourism sustainability in their own local jurisdictions.
