Year 6, No. 2, December 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. 2, December 2013, issN 2335-4194
3 Are You Feeling Nostalgic, Neighbour?
Tina Šegota and Zlatko Jančič
17 The Political Economy of Social Media: What Does it Mean for Tourism? The Case of YouTube
Maja Turnšek Hančič, Bojan Kurež, Boštjan Brumen, Maja Rosi, and Marjetka Rangus
29 Competitiveness of the Pomurska Region as a Tourist Destination
Ivan Turčan and Doris Gomezelj Omerzel
43 Planning and Development of the Golf Tourism Destination
Armand Faganel and Nataša Slak Valek
57 Communicating Sustainability-Led Innovation in Tourism: Challenges and Potentials
Aleksandra Brezovec
65 Development of Database on Beaches: Case Study
Marinela Krstinić Nižić and Jelena Đurkin
75 Abstracts in Slovene - Povzetki v slovenščini 79 Instructions for Authors
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issN 1855-3303 (printed) issN 2335-4194 (online)
Are You Feeling Nostalgic, Neighbour?
Tina Šegota
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics, Slovenia tina.segota@ef.uni-lj.si
Zlatko Jančič
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Slovenia zlatko.jancic@fdv.uni-lj.si
Despite the fact that Slovenia is one of the most important emissive tourism markets for Croatia, little is known about the travel-related behaviour of young Slovenian travellers and their connection to the phenomenon of Yugo-nostalgia. This study focuses on the potential of segmentation of the neighbouring travel market in relation to the influence of the nostalgia factor. More specifically, the objectives of the study are: (1) to determine travel motives for visiting Croatia among young Slovene travellers; (2) to define segments (clusters) of visitors based on destination perceptions; (3) to determine the influence of Yugo-nostalgia on travel motivation. The findings of the study indicate that young visitors can be divided into four different segments with similar characteristics based on destination perception and the influence of Yugo-nostalgia. The results of the study could be applicable to tourism destination strategies and advertising on the part of destination management. Keywords: travel motivation; destination perception; market segmentation; Yugo-nostalgia, Slovenia, Croatia
Introduction
In recent years, Slovene visitors have played a prominent role in Croatian tourism as they represent, according to G. Blazic, a 'large, significant and steady market Croatia could count on' (personal communication, 6. August 2010). Significant geographical, political and economic connections between Slovenia and Croatia have resulted in a certain image of Croatia as a tourist destination, influencing the motivation of Slovenes to visit the destination or not. This is of crucial importance as improving the image and perceived quality of a destination can result in an escalation in tourism (Konecnik, 2005; Leisen, 2001).
The historical relationship established between the neighbouring countries during the period of the Yugoslav federation might result in Slovene tourists developing an emotional attachment towards the destination, the so-called Yugo-nostalgia. The phenome-
non of Yugo-nostalgia has been researched by numerous authors (Boym, 2001; Kuzmanic, 2008; Lampe, 1991; Seil, 2010; Velikonja, 2008; Volcic, 2007) and is generally defined as a collective memory recreating a time to which Yugoslavians belonged before the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (sfry) in 1991. By connecting Yugo-nostalgia with tourism, we decided to relate it to nostalgic feelings that might be aroused among Slovene tourists who visit Croatia because of its Yugoslavian traditions and cultural heritage, as well as their annual visits to the Croatian coastline (a long-standing tradition). The established historical and political connections between the two neighbouring countries resulted in many Slovenians owning weekend houses along the Croatian coastline in the sfry era, which currently gives them free accommodation during their visits to Croatia. This might also create the potential for
Croatian tourism managers and stakeholders to recruit younger generations (sons and daughters of the weekend house owners), who do not have historical connections to Yugoslavia, to continue to visit the destination.
Although the Republic of Slovenia is one of the most prominent emissive tourism markets for the Republic of Croatia, little is known about the travel-related behaviours of Slovenes in relation to the nostalgic dimension. In particular, research relating to young Slovenian travellers and their connection to Yugo-nostalgia is still limited. Therefore, we assume that there is a significant difference in destination perceptions connected to Yugo-nostalgia among younger Slovene travellers. Moreover, we argue that young travellers, who do not experience Yugo-nostalgia, even though they regularly visit Croatia with their parents and friends, will have a negative overall perception of the destination, whereas those who do develop Yugo-nostalgia have a positive overall perception of Croatia as a tourist destination. Therefore, in this study, we examine the potential of segmenting the neighbouring travel market in relation to the influence of the nostalgia factor. More specifically, the objectives of the study are: 1) to uncover the possibility of segmenting the Slovenian travel market based on destination perception, and 2) to depict the influence of the nostalgia factor in travel motivation.
Literature Review
Importance of Destination Perception in Travel Motivation
Understanding the basic needs and wishes of tourists and their travel habits is of considerable importance in the tourism industry (Crompton, 1979; Jang & Wu, 2006; Yoon & Uysal, 2006). Numerous authors (e.g. Bignè, Sanchez & Sanchez, 2001; Fakeye & Crompton, 1991) note that the awareness of a destination's image is of enormous help to stakeholders in recognising the strengths and weaknesses that influence the attraction of tourists to the destination and ensuring the satisfaction of their wishes and needs (Andreu, Kozak, Avci, & Ciffer, 2006).
Lubbe (1998) argues that an individual starts to think about travelling when the need for change in
his/her everyday life occurs; next, that person evaluates different destinations to satisfy this need. Therefore, wecan observeaconsumer decision-makingpro-cess among tourists in an information search phase, in which tourists search for information on the attractiveness, availability, services, costs and image of potential destinations (Mathieson & Wall, 1982; Mid-dleton, 1996). Although interest in destination image research is increasing, there is no single definition of the concept. What the various definitions have in common is that destination image is identified as a product of the thoughts, beliefs and impressions of customers (Dowling, 2001; Kotler & Gertner, 2002). Anholt (2003) briefly states that a country's image is defined by the perception of individuals, whereas Brezovec (2001) considers that the 'overall image of the country directly influences tourists' opinion about the attributes of tourism products and services, and indirectly influences the perception and evaluation of the country as a tourism destination' (p. 745). Moreover, numerous authors (Alhemoud & Armstrong, 1996; Birgit, 2001; Echtner & Ritchie, 1993; Leisen, 2001; Konecnik, 2005) agree that a better evaluation of destination image and quality perception results in a greater probability of the destination being chosen. Furthermore, a favourable destination image positively impacts tourists' motivation to travel to the destination, as well as their experience and satisfaction when there (Bignè et al, 2001).
Numerous studies on tourist decision-making (Ba-loglu, 1997; Baloglu & McCleary, 1999; Beerli & Martin, 2004; Chen & Kersetter, 1999; Calantone, Di Benetton, Hakam, & Bojanic, 1989; Stern & Krakover, 1993; Um & Crompton, 1990; Wamsley & Jenkins, 1993; Woodside & Lysonski, 1989) suggest the importance of socio-demographics (e.g. sex, age, occupation, social status) in the formation of destination perception. Moreover, the frequency of visits also influences destination perception as research has shown that recognition, density and length of a visit to a destination have an impact on destination image (Baloglu & Manga-loglu, 2001; Chon, 1991; Fakeye & Crompton, 1991; Hu & Ritchie, 1993; Milman & Pizman, 1995).
In relation to destination image, a key target maybe Generation Y consumers, in this research represented
by young travellers from the Republic of Slovenia. As Lozarevic (2012, p. 45) pointed out: 'generation Y consumers are becoming a very important segment in today's market because of their size, their current significant amount of spending power and their potential for huge amounts in future spending power.'
Generation Y is thought to comprise up to 70 million people world-wide (Cui, Trent, & Sullivan, 2003; Tsui & Hughes, 2001; Wolburg & Pokrywczyn-ski, 2001) born between 1980 and 1994 with spending habits of USD 153-155 billion per year (Bush, Martin, & Bush, 2004; Cui et al., 2003; Lippe, 2001; Tsui & Hughes, 2001). In 2010, this segment in Slovenia represented 488,321 citizens, equal to almost a quarter (23.8%) of the Slovene population (http://www.stat.si). Little is known about these citizens' spending habits in Slovenia, but choosing to ignore this segment could be risky for Croatia as it could be the next dominant segment in tourism to the destination (Neuborne & Kerwin, 1999).
A factor that may influence destination image or perception in the context of this study is nostalgia, specifically 'Yugo-nostalgia.' However, its influence is unclear, especially for Generation Y Slovenes, who had little or no connection to Yugoslavia.
The Concept of Yugo-Nostalgia
Nostalgia derives from the combination of the Greek nostras (returning home) and algos (pain), and in the 17th century it was first used as a medical term to describe the physical manifestation of the homesickness of seamen and travellers (Bancroft, 2009). Boym (2001) divides nostalgia into two conceptual categories: restorative and reflective nostalgia. Restorative nostalgia is connected to Greek word nostros and represents an attempt to restore the past and the way something was before a certain change. Reflective nostalgia, connected to algos, describing pain and longing, refers to dwelling on feelings evoked by memories of the past, but with no attempt at restoration (Boym, 2001). Velikonja (2008) further divides nostalgia into feeling/idea nostalgia and materialised nostalgia. The first is the nostalgia present in individuals and in their collective and individual memories of the past; the second is present in material objects such as buildings,
monuments and souvenirs. In relation to tourism, we focus on Velikonja's (2008) definition of feeling/idea nostalgia and Boym's reflective nostalgia.
Pascal (2003) considers that nostalgia, defined as the result of idealising personal experience and the experiences of others, influences decision-making processes among consumers with low levels of involvement in a product or brand. In relation to tourism, Hou, Lin and Morais (2005) argue the importance of experience in that positive feedback on the attractiveness of a destination influences the development of an emotional relationship with the destination. In the case of Slovenia, a powerful emissive market for Croatia, one must not neglect the influence of the countries' historical links and interdependence in the period of the s fry, potentially resulting in Yugo-nostalgia, which may influence travel motivation and destination perception.
Nostalgia is about positive memories of the past (Holbrook, 1993); in the memorisation process, imagined memories (Belk, 1990) can reflect either personal experiences from one's own past or memories one has not experienced personally (Stern, 1992). Nostalgia based on memories that are not personal is defined as collective nostalgia, which represents longing for the past of a certain culture, nation or generation (Baker & Kennedy, 1994); this includes collective experiences related to a group or cultural events one may have been part of or that can be derived from secondary sources (Havlen & Holak, 1996). Holbrook and Schindler (1996) refer to nostalgia as 'a preference towards objects (people, destination, place, things) that were more common (popular, modern) in time of one's youth (childhood, adolescence period or even before one's birth)' (p. 29). According to Volcic (2009, p. 8), Yugo-nostalgia was about 'six nations, five languages, four religions and one Tito.' Without examining the conflicting historical disputes about his overall role, it is the fact that Tito, with his charisma and personality, played a crucial part in building Yugoslav identity. During his lifetime, he managed - 'to create a trusting relationship between the ethnicities; instead of Croats, Slovenes, Bosniaks, and Serbians, there were only Yugoslavs under Tito' (Seil, 2010, p. 6). Moreover, the unity of different nations was even more emphasised
by the Yugoslav education system, where pupils were participating in the communist Pioneers under the statement of brotherhood and unity (Volcic, 2009, p. 10), which also resulted in the annual ritual of Youth Day (May 25th). Yugoslav identity was also portrayed by music, the so called Yugoslav Rock (Volcic, 2009), some of whose bands that are still very much active and popular nowadays. The positive Yugoslavia memories were also reflected through sports by which all the nations of Yugoslavia were united into supporting Yugoslav teams, without being divided with ethnicity (Volcic, 2009).
Volcic (2010) states that there are some differences between generations in relation to how they produce and consume Yugo-nostalgia; specifically, she divides the generations into those who lived through the Yugoslav times and those born at the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s who do not or cannot remember the former state. For those who lived through Yugoslav times (p. 195):
Yugo-nostalgia is a way to idealise and embellish an experience that is postulated as superior to the subsequent war, suffering, exile and postwar existence in the successor Yugoslav states, a reaction to the prevailing nationalist critique of the Yugoslav communism, one-sidedness combating one-sidedness.
In contrast, for the younger generation, Yugo-nos-talgia 'is an exotic construct, a mythologeme of a happy remote past, a bizarre, romanticized pocket of otherness in the overwhelming wave of globalization and its culture of commercial sameness' (Volcic, 2010,
p. 195).
Of course, Yugo-nostalgia takes on a variety of forms - collective past, individual experience, restoration and reflection on memories - but for the purpose of analysis, Yugo-nostalgia is referred to as an exotic construct as defined by Volcic (2010). What is of key importance in this study is to establish whether Yugo-nostalgia has an impact on the destination perceptions and travel motivations of young Slovenians, particularly as Generation Y has little or no connection to the former Yugoslavia.
Methodology
Purpose of the Study
Just as every person is different, so is every tourist. Thus, tourists are attracted to different destinations, like different types of accommodation and engage in different activities. However, some tourists are closer to each other in terms of their preferences than others, and tourism stakeholders employ market segmentation to detect these. According to Smith, 'market segmentation consists of viewing a heterogeneous market (one characterised by divergent demand) as a number of smaller homogeneous markets' (Dolnicar, 2008, p. 2). The benefit of viewing one heterogeneous market as a group of numerous homogeneous markets is the ability to 'specialize on the needs of a particular group and become best in catering for this group' (Dolnicar, 2008, p. 2). Moreover, Dolnicar (2008) distinguishes between two approaches to market segmentation: a priori (common sense) segmentation and a posteriori (post hoc, data-driven) segmentation. The latter approach, adopted in this study, is defined as the analysis of the data used by destination management to gain insight into market preferences long after tourists visit the destination.
The purpose of this study is to define different segments among Slovene tourists visiting Croatia, based on a range of factors which represent travel motivation and destination perception. The research objectives are to: (1) determine the travel motives for visiting Croatia among young Slovene travellers, (2) define segments (clusters) of visitors based on destination perception, and /3) determine the influence of Yugo-nostalgia on travel motivation. The two fundamental questions addressed in this research concern the potential for market segmentation based on the destination perception and the detection of the influence of nostalgia on travel motivation.
Instrument
In this study, a posteriori segmentation analysis was employed to examine data derived from a questionnaire. The target population was Slovenian tourists aged 18 years old and over who had visited Croatia at least once. A pilot test was conducted with eight people with a marketing science background to obtain
feedback on clarity of the questionnaire. The questionnaire focused on different elements that might impact visitors' decisions on destination choice (Brezovec, 2001; Laroche et al, 2005; Milman & Pizam, 1995; Pascal, 2003). The elements we focused on were the total range of tourism services and the country's image. As both neighbouring countries have geographical, cultural, historical and political similarities, we decided to introduce nostalgia and political relations into the cluster analysis. Based on the literature review, a total of 40 items were generated for all five elements.
The questionnaire was designed in the Slovene language and consisted of four parts. The first part aimed to introduce the topic of the questionnaire and to ascertain the visitor/non-visitor status of the respondent. The second section, consisting of questions aimed at measuring the total tourist offer factor, asked the respondents to indicate the extent of their agreement to statements concerning their level of satisfaction with the total tourist offer of the destination. The third part consisted of questions on nostalgic motivations to visit the destination. The fourth section comprised questions relating to the country's image and statements on political relations. The respondents were presented with a seven-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The questionnaire concluded by ascertaining the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents.
We ran a four-step data analysis. In the first step, we wanted to check the reliability of the variables. Therefore, we used Cronbach's alpha coefficient to check the reliability of the total tourist offer, nostalgia, country image and political relations factors. The reliability of the first three factors was confirmed with a Cronbach's alpha value of .731 and above; therefore, these were taken forward for further analysis. We decided not to proceed with the political relations factor due to its low Cronbach's alpha value (.133). Second, all 34 variables were used in a cluster analysis that was performed to segment the market into homogeneous groups. Hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analyses were employed to segregate responses into mutually exclusive groups based on their perceived importance in relation to the three factors identified. Third, cross-
tabulations were used to profile each cluster based on socio-demographic characteristics and the perceived importance of the three factors. Finally, chi-square tests were performed to validate the clusters and further examine potential statistical differences (at the .05 level of significance).
Sample
For this survey, we wanted to obtain as many responses as possible, as we had only three conditions to fulfil: the respondents had to (1) be Slovene citizens (2) be aged 18 or over, and (3) have visited Croatia at least once. Therefore, we used a convenience sampling method to collect data via a close-ended internet questionnaire. Data were collected from 13 to 20 July 2010. Potential respondents were approached via electronic mail. The main email included the questionnaire and an invitation to participate in the survey. Potential respondents were asked to participate only if they fulfilled all three conditions and only if they were willing to participate. They were also asked to forward the questionnaire voluntarily to any of their acquaintances who demographically matched the conditions. In total, 456 usable questionnaires were collected.
The socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents are shown in Table 1. The proportion of female respondents (63.8%) was higher than that of males (36.2%). Respondents were diverse in age, the mean being 30.28 years and the standard deviation approximately 10 years. Moreover, 17.5% of the respondents were aged between 31 and 45 years and 11.4% were aged 46 or older. A vast majority of the respondents were aged 18 to 30 years as we decided to exclude all those aged 17 years or less. The latter respondents were considered not to be decision makers and were not taken forward for further analysis.
Also, as can be seen from Table 1, approximately 26.3% of the respondents had finished high school, 20.8% had obtained a technical or vocational degree and most (52.9%) at least had a college degree. The respondents were also differentiated by the frequency of their visits to Croatia as only those who had visited Croatia were included for further analysis. A small minority of 5.5% had visited the country only once. The majority of the respondents (44.6%) had visited the
Table 1 Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Slovene Tourists in Croatia
Socio-demographic variables	Percentage
Gender	
Male	36.2
Female	63.8
Age*	
18-30 years	71.1
31-45 years	17.5
>46 years	11.4
Education	
High school or lower	26.3
Technical/vocational school	20.8
College degree	52.9
Number of visits to Croatia	
One time	5.5
At least once per month	3.1
Once per year	44.6
At least two times per year	25.5
More than two times per year	21.3
Notes * Mean 30.28 years, standard deviation 9.95 years.
destination once per year, more than one fifth (21.3%) had visited more than twice per year, 25.5% had visited at least twice per year, and 3.1% had visited at least once a month.
Results and Discussion
Cluster Analysis: Market Segmentation of Slovene Tourists in Croatia
Combining hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analyses, we identified the market segments of Slovene travellers to Croatia based on their perceptions of the range of tourism services, nostalgia and the country's image. First, a hierarchical procedure using Ward's method was performed to obtain a starting point in establishing the optimal number of clusters. By reviewing the dendrogram and agglomeration cluster coefficients, we determined that a four-cluster solution was the most appropriate for market segmentation. Second, the four-cluster solution was used in ^-means clustering (non-hierarchical analysis). Cluster mem-
bership was saved for further analysis and the cluster group comparison.
To label and delineate the four clusters identified, the mean scores for each dimension of the factors identified were computed, and the results are presented in Table 2.
As is apparent from Table 2, based on the values of the factor means, Cluster 1 had the lowest mean score on all factors. Therefore, we identified this cluster as including respondents who had the lowest opinion of Croatia and labelled it 'hostile critics.' Cluster 2 had a high mean score on Factor 1, primarily connected to the destination's gastronomy and entertainment, and in the case of Factor 3 connected to the likeability of the country's image. Therefore, Cluster 2 was labelled 'phlegmatic hedonists.' The segment with the highest scores for all factors was Cluster 3. What is of particular significance for this particular cluster is that the nostalgia dimension had a higher score than the country's image; therefore, this cluster was designated 'true nostalgics.' For Cluster 4, the most significant part of the range of tourism services related to nature, history and tradition, price sensitivity and the nostalgia factor, resulting in the label 'sensitive enthusiasts.'
Cluster-Based Profile of Slovene Tourists in Croatia
Using the cross-tabulation method, the socio-demo-graphic profiles of the four clusters were obtained and are shown in Table 3. The chi-square analyses were used to identify whether there were any significant differences between the four clusters.
Hostile Critics
This cluster represented only 13.2% of the total sample (n = 60) and consisted of travellers who demonstrated a strongly negative impression of the destination's range of tourism services. For this segment, Croatia represented a summer destination but did not make the top of their travelling list because, in their opinion, its cultural, natural and historical traditions did not reach their expectations. Its total range of tourism services was considered expensive, it did not provide suitable accommodation, and its locals and caterers were rude. This segment had a negative
Table 2 Mean Scores of Factors as Rated by the Four Clusters
Factor dimensions
Factor i: Tourist offer (factor mean)	4.03
Natural beauties	4.87
Environment arrangement	3.21
Nurture of tradition	3.76
Interesting historical sites	4.38
Village and town's architecture	3.82
Adventure	3.79
Entertainment	4.40
Traditional dishes	4.16
Traditional wines	3.92
Nightlife	3.54
Accommodation	3.71
Affordability	2.35
Locals' friendliness	5.38
Food shopping	4.51
Caterers' friendliness	2.35
Experience	3.64
Undesirability	5.08
Factor 2: Nostalgia (factor mean)	1.99
Childhood memories	1.87
Positive memories	2.78
Attention	2.23
Yugo-nostalgia	1.82
Visiting	1.33
Transmission of memories	2.07
image of the country, considering Croatia to be unsuitable for work, investment and shopping, as well as not meeting their requirements for a retirement lifestyle. The members of this cluster were not at all infected by nostalgia. This is the only segment of younger travellers (18-30 years) with a majority of male respondents (51.7%), most of whom had obtained a college degree (60%), and who mainly visited Croatia once per year (45.8%).
Phlegmatic Hedonists
The members of this cluster represented 21% of the total sample (n = 96). Travellers belonging to this cluster
4.48	5.18	4.76
5.89	6.60	6.29
3.85	4.78	4.03
4.24	5.22	4.83
5.30	6.08	5.71
4.97	6.02	5.32
4.94	6.00	5.16
5.49	6.11	5.65
5.32	6.14	5.72
4.50	5.60	5.07
4.59	5.56	5.13
4.82	5.95	5.17
3.09	4.07	2.94
4.81	5.54	5.45
3.24	3.25	3.94
3.96	4.81	3.25
5.20	5.98	4.20
2.69	2.13	3-72
2.71	5.06	3.88
2.32	4.60	3.58
4.04	6.20	5.23
2.34	4.90	3.76
2.15	4.28	2.98
1.99	4.45	3.15
3.33	5.95	4.57
Continued on the next page
were eager to label Croatia as a fun and gourmet destination, but the nurturing of its cultural and historical tradition did not affect them (based on the results in Table 3). They tended to enjoy the friendliness of the locals and caterers and, in contrast to those in Cluster 1, had positive memories of previous visits and felt that they were desired tourists. The overall country image is neutral, but members would potentially consider the destination for shopping and travelling. The majority of this segment comprised women (64.6%) aged 18-30 years (68.8%). Most of them (60.4%) had obtained at least a college degree and almost half (48.4%) visited Croatia at least once per year.
Cluster 1 (n = 60) Cluster 2 (n = 96) Cluster 3 (n = 157) Cluster 4 (n = 143)
Table 2 Continued from the previous page
Factor dimensions	Cluster 1 (n = 60)	Cluster 2 (n = 96) Cluster 3 (n	= 157) Cluster 4 (n	= 143)
Factor 3: Country's image (factor mean)	2.51	3.35	4.44	3.48
Kindness	2.69	4.38	5.46	4.38
Role model country	2.22	3.53	4.50	3.30
Scepticism	4.71	3.67	3.55	4.20
Likability	2.72	4.37	5.11	4.10
Working	1.13	2.08	3.60	1.93
Investing	1.ЗЗ	2.41	4.15	2.51
Shopping	1.62	3.38	4.49	3.01
Travelling	2.80	4.71	6.18	4.84
Retirement	1.18	2.00	4.36	2.09
Table 3 Socio-Demographic Characteristics of the four Clusters of Slovene Tourists in Croatia
Socio-demographic variables	Cluster 1 (n = 60)	Cluster 2 (n = 96)	Cluster 3 (« = 157)	Cluster 4 (« = 143)	X2	Sig.
Gender					7.624	0.054
Male	51.7%	35.4%	31.8%	35.0%		
Female	48.3%	64.6%	68.2%	65.0%		
Aget					9.623	0.141
18-30 years	78.3%	68.8%	64.3%	76.9%		
31-45 years	16.7%	16.7%	21.0%	14.7%		
>46 years	5.0%	14.6%	14.6%	8.4%		
Education					11.262	0.081
High school or lower	15.0%	22.9%	29.9%	29.4%		
Technical/vocational school	25.0%	16.7%	24.8%	17.5%		
College degree	60.0%	60.4%	45.2%	53.1%		
Number of visits to Croatia					77.029	0.000*
One time	25.4%	6.3%	1.9%	0.7%		
At least once per month	5.1%	2.1%	3.2%	2.9%		
Once per year	45.8%	48.4%	33.8%	53.6%		
At least two times per year	18.6%	23.2%	30.6%	24.3%		
More than two times per year	5.1%	20.0%	30.6%	18.6%		
Notes * p < 0.01. t Mean 30.28 years, standard deviation 9.95 years.
True Nostalgics
Travellers belonging to this segment represented 34.4% of the total sample (n = 157). Members of this cluster had the highest overall opinion of Croatia's range of tourism services and were significantly influenced by
nostalgia. They enjoyed the destination's culture, history, nature, and traditional dishes and wines. Croatia was perceived as a fun, entertaining and adventurous destination with suitable accommodation and nightlife. They perceived the locals and caterers to be
friendly. In comparison to all other clusters, members were primarily influenced by nostalgia (based on the results in Table 3). The destination represented the country most worth visiting on the basis of positive memories both present and past as it evoked childhood memories. Members labelled themselves as Yugo-nostalgics and were eager to recount their memories to their children at some point. The destination also represented a country worth considering in relation to travel, shopping and life after retirement. It was labelled as a kind and likeable destination with a positive country image. Most of the respondents were women (68.3%) aged 18-30 years. Nearly 30% had education at high school level, and almost 46% had obtained a college degree or higher. The number of previous visits differed: almost 31% visited Croatia twice per year and the same percentage visited more frequently. Nearly 34% had visited the destination only once per year. Only 1.9% of members were first-time visitors to Croatia.
Sensitive Enthusiasts
Members of this cluster represented 31.4% of the total sample (n = 143). Travellers belonging to this cluster labelled Croatia as a destination with beautiful nature and fascinating historical sites, where they could be entertained, and enjoy the country's traditional dishes (based on the results shown in Table 3). They tended to enjoy the friendliness of the locals but would prefer a more affordable overall range of tourism services. In comparison with the members of Clusters 1 and 2, these travellers were affected by nostalgia, especially by positive memories and the desire to transmit these to their children. The overall country image was neutral, but they would not consider the destination for work or life after retirement. The majority of this segment comprised women (65%) aged 18-30 years (76.9%). More than half (53.1%) had obtained at least a college degree and more than half (53.6%) visited Croatia once per year.
Discussion
As shown in Table 3, the chi-square test revealed significant differences for the socio-demographic variable measuring the number of visits to the destination.
Cluster 1 had a higher proportion of members who visited Croatia only once (25.4%) when compared to Cluster 2 (6.3%), Cluster 3 (1.9%) and Cluster 4 (0.7%). Cluster 1 was unusual in that the country image was negative and the highest percentage of members visiting the destination at least once per month was low (5.1%). In Cluster 4, more than one third of the members (30.4%) visited Croatia more than twice per year; in addition, this cluster had the lowest percentage of members who visited the destination only once per year (33.8%).
The results of this study suggest that there are differences among Slovene tourists in Croatia based on the ratings of the importance of the offer of tourism services, nostalgia and country image. The results show that Slovene tourists are not homogeneous in relation to their perceptions of Croatia's offer of tourism services, its image and the influence of nostalgia on their destination preferences. The results show some similarities to previous studies (Milman & Pizman 1995; Pascal 2003, Segota & Jancic, 2012) in that the offer of tourism services and nostalgia factors influence the perception of the destination among travellers. This should provide implications for further studies of the influence of nostalgia on travel decision making in the area of marketing strategy and service development.
Conclusion and Recommendations
In this study, three motivation factors of the four originally defined were used to segment the market of Slovene tourists in Croatia based on the Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient: (1) the range of tourist services offered, (2) nostalgia and (3) country image. The political relations factor was not included in the analysis as it proved to be unreliable. By using cluster analysis, this study has shown that it is possible to segment the market of Slovene travellers to Croatia only using three factors. The four segments were labelled (1) 'hostile critics,' (2) 'phlegmatic hedonists,' (3) 'true nostalgics,' and (4) 'sensitive enthusiasts.' The results of the study contribute to the existing literature on tourists' decision-making behaviour in conferring better understanding of the segments of tourists visiting Croatia, especially in relation to the impact of the
nostalgia factor. The results are also of use to marketing practitioners in developing marketing strategies and programmes to approach each segment and attract more tourists to the destination.
One of the key factors in this study was nostalgia, as the emissive country (Slovenia) and the receiving country (Croatia) are both historically and culturally linked. The results show that nostalgia could be the motivation to visit the destination and could, according to Pascal (2003), influence tourists with low involvement in the decision-making process. Furthermore, they provide useful implications for both marketers and industry practitioners for the application of nostalgia in tourism marketing strategies for the emissive countries with a long history of visiting Croatia. In order to reach more tourists from emissive countries, marketers and practitioners should match emotional nostalgia messages with advertising and services at the destination.
The results also show that Slovene tourists cannot be considered one homogeneous group and that there are differences between the groups based on the offer of tourism services and the country's image. Therefore, marketers should apply different communication strategies to reach each segment and further develop products and services to match tourists' needs and wishes. In relation to the of tourism service, the three components of natural beauty, fascinating historical sites and entertainment were shown to rank among the highest motivating factors for all four groups, which should be useful for destination marketers and practitioners when designing tour packages and marketing programmes.
The results indicate four different segments of Slovene tourists in Croatia. Cluster 1 (hostile critics) is the smallest group identified in the study (13.2% of the sample) and its opinion is based either on one single visit to the destination or one visit per year. This cluster is also the youngest segment, which leads us to assume that certain financial or social pressures might prevent them visiting the destination. They view Croatia as a destination with friendly local people, but restaurant service employees seem unfriendly, and this may result in the country being perceived as undesirable overall as a potential destination. This result should be useful
to tourism service practitioners in improving the service provided by their staff as most of the workers in this industry are seasonal. As the members of this segment consider the destination to be unaffordable and bring most of their food from home, it is suggested that marketing practitioners developing low-cost accommodation and gastronomic offers or so-called last minute offers. The members of this group are likely to consider Croatia only for travel, so it is highly recommended that marketing communications contain strong messages about travelling experiences available in the country.
Based on the results, the members of Cluster 2 (phlegmatic hedonists) seem to perceive Croatia's traditional dishes and the overall experience as the main factors driving them to visit. The group's name derives from their high ranking of areas of natural beauty, captivating historical sites, entertainment, traditional dishes and experience. The group represents 21% of all respondents, with the majority being women who mainly visit Croatia once per year. Positive memories are the only component of the nostalgia factor that affects their motivation to visit the destination; they tend to consider Croatia as a destination for travelling and shopping. This might suggest the potential of advertising the destination as a source of shopping resorts since large shopping centres have emerged around the key cities and coastline in the last five years. The promotion would be yet more effective if destination marketers were to position Croatia as a land of unique traditional gastronomy and culture that is different from other Mediterranean destinations. In addition to its uniqueness, focusing on shopping would highlight that the country is fashionable and in vogue and would differentiate the overall experience from other destinations. Typically, global advertisements for the destination communicate only its areas of natural beauty and historical sites, which indicates a certain lack of vision of the overall visitor's experience. To provide greater satisfaction to this segment and to motivate them to change from being phlegmatic into becoming interested, destination marketers should offer programmes to visit traditional gastronomic sites in particular regions, as well as different shopping centres and entertainment sites. In addition, the visits could
be merged into one programme and offered as a single tour package.
The largest segment identified in this study is Cluster 3 with 34.4% of all respondents and is called 'true nostalgics.' The majority of this segment comprises repeat visitors, strongly influenced by nostalgia, suggesting that the products and services offered to this segment have to be different from all other groups. Their main motives for visiting Croatia are the natural and cultural heritage combined with positive experiences and adventures. At the same time, they are influenced by so-called Yugo-nostalgia. Therefore, it is suggested that marketing practitioners design a variety of travel and leisure activities connected to historical events in Yugoslavia. Furthermore, to ensure greater satisfaction for this segment, destination marketers should offer programmes to visit historical sites in particular regions or events connected to the former Yugoslavia available at the destination and to offer them as a tour package. In addition, tour companies should offer several kinds of holiday and leisure products, such as agro-tourism, shopping, and spa stays. This segment gave the highest score for the country's image factor with above-average scores (when compared to the other groups) for the overall kindness of the people in the country and likeability. The group also showed a high interest in considering Croatia as a potential investment market and retirement resort. Based on these findings, it is suggested that investment and retirement products and services should be designed and marketed. Croatia has never been promoted as a country with above-average health and natural conditions for retirement. By combining its aspects of natural beauty, Mediterranean gastronomy and coastline, there is the potential to market retirement programmes and specialised offers.
The fourth segment, the second largest homogeneous group with 31.4% of respondents, called 'sensitive enthusiasts,' perceives the destination experience and nightlife as among the factors motivating them to visit. This group strives to find the most suitable accommodation but is price sensitive. The overall sense among the respondents is that they are undesirable tourists. As this is a very young group with a majority of women (65%), we might assume that they prefer
to spend their visits at parties and adventure sites. The feeling that they are undesirable tourists could arise from the presence of an elderly population unused to its place of residence being a party destination; there is major generation gap and considerable differences between the resident population and the visitors. To satisfy this segment, marketers should promote Croatia's party destinations such as the famous Zrce beach, the towns of Rovinj, Porec and Rabac, and the islands of Hvar and Brac as these offer excellent adventures and nightlife. As Greece and Spain lead the European market as students' party destinations during the summer and Belgrade and Bratislava lead as New Year party destinations, it is essential to promote Croatia's destinations as affordable spots for fun and adventure. The tour packages designed should be different from those for the first time travellers as the vast majority of those in the group are repeat visitors.
Regarding limitations, this study used a convenient sampling method and was distributed online. Therefore, the results obtained may not be general-isable to Slovene visitors to Croatia as a whole. Furthermore, the results may not reflect their actual opinions of Croatia's offer of tourism services and its image. In particular, not all respondents will have been able truly to reflect on the nostalgia factor measuring Yugo-nostalgia and the components concerning the transmission of memories as not all of them were old enough to remember life in Yugoslavia, and they do not yet have their own children. Therefore, we would suggest choosing respondents carefully when measuring the nostalgia factor in further tourism studies as younger populations may not be suitable for this type of research. It would be useful to examine the travel motivations of tourists from other emissive countries to compare and cross-validate the results of this study. However, the study provides strong indications for further research on the influence of Yugo-nostalgia among visitors from former Yugoslavian countries and the influence of historical events on tourism.
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The Political Economy of Social Media: What Does it Mean for Tourism? The Case of YouTube
Maja Turnšek Hančič
University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia maja.turnsek@um.si
Bojan Kurež
University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia bojan. kurez@um.si Boštjan Brumen
University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia
bostjan.brumen@um.si
Maja Rosi
University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia maja.rosi@um.si
Marjetka Rangus
University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia marjetka.rangus@um.si
The research presented here builds on theories of the political economy of (new) media. The objective of this paper is to overcome two 'blind spots' in the current literature on social media and tourism. The first is the role of social media intermediaries, such as YouTube (YouTube llc) in the mediation of communication amongst tourists, hosts and the tourism industry. The second is the role of social media in tourism as a social force, by enabling communication amongst tourists and hosts. We borrow analytical tools from the political economy paradigm and thus focus upon the ownership structures, political regulations and modes of transforming communication into marketable products (commodification) by YouTube llc. These are analyzed as factors that influence tourism both as an industry and as a social force. Keywords: tourism; social media; YouTube; political economy
Introduction: Social Media and Tourism
Public discourse as well as scientific research on new media often seem to follow techno-deterministic fears and myths of new media that predict extreme social changes after which nothing will ever be as it was (Schoenbach, 2001). One such prediction is the empowerment of tourists in their relation to the tourism industry via social media.
Social media, both general (such as YouTube and Facebook) and travel specific (such as TripAdvisor), are often hailed (and feared) as democratising the travel experience because travellers are said to have gained new, hitherto unprecedented powers in relating positive and negative information on tourism destinations to their fellow travellers (Mendes-Filho & Tan, 2009; Amersdorffer, Bauhuber, & Oellrich, 2012, Lim,
Chung, & Weaver, 2012). Word-of-mouth communication on tourism destinations has always been extremely influential for the tourism industry. This has only been amplified by social media, since one person not only reaches his or her acquaintances but can also communicate with hundreds or even thousands of other people about a tourism destination.
Xiang and Gretzel (2010) have analysed the extent to which social media appear in search engine results in the context of travel-related searches. Their analysis shows that social media constitute a substantial part of tourism search results, indicating that search engines likely direct travellers to social media sites, thus confirming the growing importance of social media in the online tourism domain.
With social media, Amersdorffer et al. (2012, p. 178) argue that the quality of a service is more transparent; the promises of quality of tourism brands are open to more public questioning, and traditional branding and brand communication are called into question. The website becomes less salient and constitutes only one core area of the online presence. Social media become social filters through which information is extracted and customised according to interests of the network members (Amersdorffer et al., 2012).
According to Lim et al. (2012), a substantial number of consumer-generated videos exist about destinations and have the ability to influence consumers' brand perception of a destination. Furthermore, their research shows that the consumer-generated tourism content on YouTube attracts more people than marketer-generated content. Similarly, social media are perceived as a more trustworthy source of information regarding tourism products and services than corporate-sponsored communication (Fotis, Buhalis, & Rossides, 2012).
However, the trustworthiness of tourist-generated content depends on the trustworthiness of the social intermediary that provides the possibilities for publishing such content (Burgess, Sellitto, Cox, & Buult-jens, 2009), e.g. TripAdvisor llc or YouTube llc as the organisations that serve as social filters or gatekeepers of information. While the role of intermediaries in tourism is well explored in other subfields of tourism, e.g. operations of travel agencies, social me-
dia as intermediaries are not only under-researched in tourism literature but are most commonly not even recognised as such, since the focus is only on those who publish (tourists) and not those who dictate the rules of publishing (social media intermediaries).
Another 'blind spot' in discussions on social media in tourism literature is the relation between social media and tourism as a social force, not merely tourism as an industry. As Higgins-Desbiolles (2006) shows, tourism has historically been considered to be much more than only the tourism industry since, in addition to economic values, tourism offers social, cultural, and environmental benefits and can be a powerful force promoting peace and understanding between peoples. Social media potentially have enormous power to aid in these other functions of tourism since they enable not only word-of-mouth communication amongst tourists but also communication amongst tourists and their (potential) hosts.
The 'New Communications Paradigm'
Mangold and Faulds (2009) argue that social media transform power relations since the content, timing and frequency of the social media-based conversations occurring between consumers are outside managers' direct control. Integrated marketing communications have traditionally been considered to be largely one-way in nature. Corporations asserted control over their brands and destination marketing through advertising, personal selling, public relations and publicity, direct marketing and sales promotion.
The 'new communications paradigm' that they introduce, in contrast, means going beyond one-way traffic to communications that also include multiple avenues of social media: highly magnified forms of word-of-mouth communication in which marketing managers cannot control the content and frequency of such information (Mangold & Faulds 2009) (see Figure 1).
Furthermore, Mangold and Faulds (2009) provide a variety of methods for the industry to relate to their customers via social media, such as providing consumers with networking platforms, using blogs, social media tools, and promotional tools to engage customers. Their 'new communications paradigm' is thus
set upon the relation between the industry and the consumers or tourists; it does not account, however, for the 'blind spot' in most literature on social media: the power of social media platform providers as new intermediaries and their role in shaping the online tourism domain. In other words, they do not include any thoughts on the political economy of social media and how that might affect the 'new communications paradigm.'
Political Economy of Social Media: Material versus Social Mediation
The political economy of media (old and new) is briefly described by McChesney (2000, p. 110) as entailing two dimensions. First, it addresses the nature of the relationship between media and communication systems on one hand and the broader social structure on the other; it does so with a particular interest in how economic factors influence politics and social relations. Second, it specifically examines how ownership, support mechanisms (e.g. advertising) and government policies influence media behaviour and content (McChesney, 2000, p. 110).
The political economy of (social) media is addressed here because of its explicit recognition of media as social actors who perform and actively engage in the mediasation of communication. The discourse on tourists' empowerment via social media usually glosses over or fails to recognise social media as actors in and by themselves but implicitly considers them as only tools for mediation - more similar to a sheet of paper than to a publishing company.
Mediated communication means mediation by a material artefact (e.g. a letter written on a sheet of paper) and/or mediation by a social actor (e.g. a newspaper published by a media house). In the case of writing a letter, for example, the extent of control over commu-
nication is much higher by the communicative partners (Person A writing a letter to Person B), and the medium in question (letter) by itself does not perform any active social role.1
In the case of a newspaper, this relationship is much more complicated. Communication between a journalist and her reader is mediated not only by a printed sheet of paper but much more effectively by the media house in question, which includes work of one or more editors, professional codes of conduct, relations amongst journalists, relations between the media house and its advertisers, state regulation, etc.
What we see in most predictions about social media empowering tourists in relation to the tourism industry is an implicit and incorrect understanding of social media as merely tools with no active social role in the popularisation of their use, the selection and creation of published content or influencing the popularity of tourist-generated content. In this, such works merely accept the intentional discourse of social media platforms that strategically self-characterise themselves in a way that allows them to gain protections that benefit them and obligations that do not (Gillespie 2010). This means that most of this literature falls into the discourse criticised by Scholz as employing a market ideology that 'worships the creative amateur' (Keen 2007) and is actually a framing device of professional elites who are trying to mobilise novelty as a marketing ploy (Scholz, 2008).
Technology, especially technology that enables tourist-generated content, is a result of the intentional
1 It is important to note, however, that even in a simple case of writing a letter we are usually not talking only about materially mediated communication, since for posting a letter we need postal services which thus include not only material but already social mediation.
process, 'that is to say, as being looked for and developed with certain purposes and practices already in mind' (Williams 1974). The practices that the ict companies had in mind when creating social media were less of the empowerment of users than 'crowd-sourcing' (Brabham 2008; Huberman, Romero, & Wu, 2009) and 'harnessing collective intelligence' (O'Reilly, 2005). The popularisation of social media has not been merely a bottom-up process but is, to a large extent, driven by media companies that are learning how to expand their revenue opportunities (Jenkins & Deuze, 2008, p. 6).
Any thought on social media and their relation to tourism as a social force and as an industry should thus include the fact that it is the new intermediaries (i.e. the platform providers, such as YouTube Limited Liability Company (YouTube llc) or TripAdvisor llt) that dictate the rules of engagement on social media.
Social media are not only tourist-to-tourist communication as in the marketplace, but encompass a much wider variety of communicative relations (see Figure 2):
• Tourist-to-tourist communication - this encompasses traditional forms of word-of-mouth transformed into social media forms and is extended by various possibilities for online reviews com-
bined with user-generated pictures and videos. Here, we include not only communication with the goal of making recommendations to other travellers but also other more 'mundane' yet extremely powerful functions of tourism as a social form: to share memories with friends or to relive the vacation experience (Wilson, Murphy, & Cambra Fierro, 2012).
•	Tourist-to-host communication - social media are full of examples of communication on tourism destinations in which local people provide information for tourists (Miguéns, Baggio, & Costa, 2009) or tourists praise specific destinations and flatter local people on the beauty of their home; much more research is needed, however, on the positive effects of such communication in relation to tourism as a social force for promoting international understanding.
•	Host-to-host communication - this includes communication on tourism amongst those that are not travelling but communicate on tourism issues that affect their daily lives in a tourism destination.
•	Tourism industry-to-tourist communication - this conversation takes place either in the traditional form of paid advertisements or in more creative ways of direct involvement in social media, such as providing blogs, profiles and channels with communication that resembles the communication of users much more than it does traditional advertising forms (Hvass & Munar 2012).
•	Tourist-to-tourism industry communication - one of the arguments supporting the thesis on tourists' empowerment via social media is the fact that these media provide more possibilities for users to publish comments and questions to the tourism industry. However, empowerment happens only if the industry is willing to listen. Here, a specific characteristic of social media is helpful for tourists: their public character. In comparison to other more traditional forms of providing feedback to the tourism industry, such as writing a letter to the manager, social media enable the tourists to perform a potentially much more
public feedback. The mere fact that others are potentially listening to the 'conversation' means more incentives for the industry to truly listen and respond (previously, this was reserved only for rare cases when tourists managed to publicise their complaints and, to a smaller extent, also their praise in mass media).
• Communication of all the above actors to other social actors such as mass media, political system, etc.
All this communication is embedded into a virtual sphere commanded by social media intermediaries (e.g. YouTube llc as a company). We need to analyse a specific case to illustrate more specifically what exactly such social mediation means for the tourism industry and tourism as a social force. In the next section, we do so based on one of the most powerful social media intermediaries: YouTube llc.
Tourism and New Intermediaries: The Case of YouTube
YouTube is the most relevant example of social media given in scholarly literature (Jenkins & Deuze, 2008). It has an almost a global monopoly within online video-sharing and is, according to the Alexa Web Information Company (http://www.alexa.com/topsites), the third most visited website, immediately following Google and Facebook in most countries throughout the world.
Although YouTube is not tourism-specific social medium (compared to TripAdvisor, for example), tourism is one of its extremely common subjects (Wall 2009; Lim et al., 2012). Nevertheless, YouTube has not featured prominently in tourism research, and much work needs to be done in this area in the future.
We borrowed research and analytical methods from the political economy and focused on three characteristics of YouTube llc and their relation to tourism as an industry and a social force: political regulation, ownership and business model. To a large extent, this analysis builds on a literature review of previous research regarding the political economy of YouTube.
It combines this with two research methods of analysing YouTube, closely following the works of
Van Dijck (2009) and Pauwels and Hellriegel (2009).
One method was a discourse analysis (Van Dijck 2009) of YouTube llc's official voice found in its public statements and terms of use.2 The aim of this analysis was to obtain information on how YouTube llc discursively constructs itself and its users. Another method was an analysis of the steering mechanisms embodied in the YouTube infrastructure or 'hybrid media analysis' including structure, design, hyperlinks, imagery, topics and issues (Pauwells & Hellriegel 2009).
Political Regulation
One supremely significant critical issue in the political economy of old broadcasting media has been Western imperialism and exporting Western cultural values with a global expansion of mostly Hollywood products. Nowadays, these concerns are focused on the dominance of us corporate power in ict industries (Boyd-Barrett, 2006).
One such fear is the fact that us dominance in ict industries is reflected in a dominance of Western voices in such communicative venues, which in turn has serious consequences for tourism as a social force. Wall (2009) analysed YouTube videos on Africa and concluded that the age-old inequities in communication still exist and still allow Westerners to dominate (Wall, 2009, p. 405):
More broadly, the findings here suggest that YouTube enables the average westerner in particular to become a chronicler of other peoples in faraway lands just as travellers and missionaries 'discovered' Africa in previous centuries. Most of these westerners, although not the official voices of the past, do not offer a remedy to the Othering of Africa. Indeed, many of their contributions to YouTube reinforce and naturalize stereotypes.
2 Here we analysed information that was provided in two depths of hyperlinking from YouTube homepage in the spring of 2013 from the following sections: About,' 'Press,' 'Copyright'' 'Creators' 'Advertise'' 'Developers' 'Help,' 'Terms' 'Policy and Safety,' 'Privacy' 'Try something new!'
The second fear is the fact that communication, both national and international, via social media is regulated by Western rules and Western cultural norms. YouTube is registered in us and thus complies to the us regulation, even though it operates worldwide and is amongst the most visited websites worldwide.
In its terms of service, YouTube llc states (http:// www.youtube.com/t/terms):
You agree that: (i) the Service shall be deemed solely based in California; and (ii) the Service shall be deemed a passive website that does not give rise to personal jurisdiction over YouTube, either specific or general, in jurisdictions other than California.
The tourism industry, tourists and hosts that want to communicate via YouTube thus also need to comply to the us regulation.
Specifically, YouTube llc is registered as a limited liability company. The us Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides limited liability to online service providers. According to McDonald (2009, p. 398), these limitations create a 'safe harbour' for online service providers. They are not held liable for infringing material available over their services if (a) the provider has no knowledge the material was available, (b) does not gain any direct financial benefit from the infringing activity, (c) acts expeditiously to remove or disable access to such material once notification is presented (McDonald, 2009, p. 398).
YouTube has been a target of 'the copyright wars' in which mainstream media accuse YouTube llc of being a distribution platform for illegally reproduced proprietary content; Burgess and Green (2009, p. 35) argue that the 'copyright wars illustrate the difficult dual identity' of YouTube llc both as a business and as a cultural resource co-created by its users. Similarly, Gillespie (2010, p. 17) argues that 'it is YouTube llc's complex economic allegiances that compel it to both play host to amateur video culture and provide content owners with the tools to criminalize it.'
One result of the 'copyright wars' has been, as Wasko and Erikson (2009, p. 381) point out, the content-identification technology provided by YouTube
llc that allows companies to claim their content and ask for its removal or run advertising with it and thereby gain revenue. Another result identified by McDonald (2009, p. 392) was advertising only with 'partner' videos, for which the content is checked for its compliance with the copyright laws. A third result has been advertising deals with mainstream media. McDonald (2009) argues that YouTube llc has'been particularly keen to recruit content partners from big media brands' (McDonald 2009, p. 392).
All three of these steps mean that political regulation in terms of copyright compels YouTube llc to play by the rules of big business, thereby 'levelling' the playing field not in a way that would empower users or small tourism companies but large companies.
Ownership
YouTube was purchased in 2006 by Google, the largest global player in online search engines. Although Google and YouTube operate as two separate corporations, their enmeshment is ever more visible. An example would be their design synchronisation that happens at times Google wishes to promote a specific event or information, sometimes favour of sports events and with them the tourism industry.
Google gains its revenue from advertising; the share of its advertising revenue in 2005 was 98.8 per cent of its total turnover (Machill, Beiler & Zenker, 2009, p. 595). It must thus continuously acquire new users and generate high access rates. Since Google already had its own Google Videos service at the time of purchasing YouTube, it is unlikely, as van Dijck (2009,42) points out, that the acquisition of YouTube was about technology: it was about the large number of publishers and audiences that YouTube attracted and the creation of 'the Google layer.'
The 'Google layer' is the 'synergistic membrane created by media companies with prescribed circuits that constrain user freedoms and constrain users' range of motion within a narrow, privatized slice of the World Wide Web' (Milberry & Anderson, 2009, p.
393).
Specifically, this means that those forms of communication on tourism that are not part of Google layer are strategically pushed away so that those who
use Google or YouTube (thus most of internet users) are not likely to find such expressions. Thus, it is now more convenient for a tourism provider to use YouTube as a venue for their videos - even if they would want to publish them only at their own websites this would mean that they would not necessarily be part of 'the Google layer' and would thus reach fewer viewers.
Google dominates the online market in a number of countries worldwide to an extent that would not be permissible for other media and, in Europe, according to Machill et al. (2008, p. 593), would be curbed by rules that limit their reach. It thus has the power to dictate the way the tourism industry is represented. Xiang, Wöber, and Fesenmaier (2008) have discovered that only an exceedingly small fraction of indexed tourism Web pages are shown as Google search results that are accessible to a user, resulting in an over-all visibility ratio of 0.032%. Considering that most search engines users view only the first three search result pages, the actual visibility ratio is thus much lower.
Their findings furthermore indicate that Google substantially over-represents a relatively small number of websites in the online tourism domain, especially portal websites and information aggregators. The competition for attention has already been shown with substantial investment by destination marketing organisations in online marketing and advertising through search engines (Xiang et al., 2008,146).
No research has been conduction on how YouTube LLC represents tourism and its actors, yet given the fact that it follows the operations of its owner Google we can hypothesise here that over-representation of large tourism companies would be the norm. This is thus a case and a call for future research. Furthermore, the fact that Google has a global monopoly both in online search and in video sharing via YouTube has major consequences for the tourism industry since such a monopolistic position means that the advertising model and the price are set by the monopolists, as we will see in the next chapter.
Business Model
An indispensable analytical concept in political economy is commodification, i.e. the transformation of
communication into a commodity that can be sold on the market. Mosco (1996) identifies five interconnected types of communication commodification: commodification of content, audience commodifica-tion, intrinsic commodification, extensive commodifi-cation, commodification of labour. YouTube llc does not sell its content since the watching and publishing YouTube videos are free for all. It does, however, engage in other forms of commodification of communication.
Audience Commodification: Advertising
YouTube LLC's business model is focused primarily on audience commodification: it sells audiences to advertisers. Advertising on YouTube can be targeted according to the geographic location of the user: specific by country, region or even city. Audiences could be targeted according to age, gender and interest. 'Interest-Based Advertising,' for example, identifies common interest groups among users that have affinities for particular types of content.
Initsdocuments, YouTube llc recognisesthetour-ism industry as an important player, since it is one of the most addressed industries in its promotional examples. To illustrate, in its 'Grow Your Business with YouTube'guide, YouTube llc provides guidelines for advertisements based on a tourism case: to 'Generate interest in Northlake Bed and Breakfast as a premier vacation destination in central Vermont' (YouTube, 2012).
Another illustration comes from the main address aimed at advertisers (http://www.youtube.com/yt/ advertise/why-youtube.html):
Say you run a hotel in Dallas. You can shoot a video tour of your rooms and promote it as a Tv-style ad before other YouTube travel videos. Or put it next to video search results for 'Dallas hotels,' or on Texas travel websites where vacationers will see it as they browse on their tablets, pcs, web Tvs and smartphones. You don't need fancy equipment or a big budget to make great video. And with AdWords for video, you pay nothing unless a viewer chooses to watch your video.
Figure 3 Example of Tourism Advertisement on YouTube When Searching for 'Bed and Breakfast' Videos
Bermejo (2009) compares business models of broadcasting media with Google's business model. He describes Google as an innovator in terms of online advertising, since it introduced a cost-per-click pricing model coupled with a system of keyword auctions (Bermejo, 2009, p. 148). In exposure-pricing models, known from broadcasting, audience attention was sold in terms of exposure. In performance-pricing models, it is not exposure but audience responses (e.g. clicking, providing or asking for information, purchasing, etc.) that determine revenue, or in other words are sold to the advertisers. Since the response of audiences is not under direct media control, but depends mostly on the quality and pricing of the product advertised and the advertisements (Bermejo, 2009, p. 148), Google added a specific possibility: the order in which advertisements are shown depends on the previous performance of advertisements. 'That is, the more successful a particular advert linked to a particular keyword is in generating clicks (and revenue for Google), the more prominent it will be in successive appearance
on the search results page' (Bermejo, 2009, p. 148).
This has significant consequences for the tourism industry. In the old exposure-pricing models, e.g. on television or in newspapers, companies were guaranteed a space in the best viewed pages or during most watched broadcasts as long as they paid for the service. In this new model, tourism companies need to compete with other advertisers not only in terms of readiness to pay a specific price but much more in terms of quality of their previous offer and marketing appeal of their advertisements in order to gain prominent exposure and thus large viewership and extensive response from YouTube users.
This advertising model thus gives more possibilities to small tourism providers who may never have had sufficient funds to buy expensive commercials in the old pricing model but may prove to have more creative approaches to reaching audiences via YouTube. However, given the fact that larger companies can afford to hire professionals to create appealing advertisements and can afford to pay more and thus gain
TURNŠEK HANČIČ ET AL.	THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Table 1 How Ads Appear on YouTube
Ad Format	Viewer Experience	Pricing Model
TrueView In-search Ads appear on the YouTube search page.	Viewers see your ad above or next to YouTube's search results when they search for content related to your video.	Pay only when someone clicks your ad to watch your video.
TrueView In-display Ads appear next to videos on the YouTube watch page.	Viewers can click the display ad to watch the video in the ad or on a YouTube watch or channel page.	Pay only when someone clicks your ad to watch your video.
TrueView In-stream Ads play as a pre-, mid-, or post-roll on YouTube partner videos of all lengths.	Ad plays and viewers can skip after 5 seconds.	Pay only when someone watches 30 seconds of your ad or to completion if the ad is under 30 seconds.
TrueView In-slate Ads play before long-form YouTube partner videos over 10 minutes.	Before a video plays, viewers choose to watch one of three ads, or to see regular commercial breaks during the video.	Pay only when someone clicks your ad to watch your video.
Notes Adapted from YouTube (2012, p. 74).
larger audiences (since costs are per click) and that small tourism providers usually do not pay close attention to online marketing (Brumen, Rosi, Turnšek Hančič, & Kurež 2013), it is unlikely that this model empowers the small tourism industries but, just as the old model, helps 'the rich get richer.'
Intrinsic Commodification: Information on Users
According to Amersdorffer et al. (2012, p. 183), the future in tourism belongs to those innovators that will know how to exploit the enormous amount of data provided by search engines about their users and will know how to go beyond the older webpage concept to the social web practices. YouTube LLC's business model rests upon this intrinsic commodification of information on its users - metadata used to profile people and their interests and therefore deliver successful targeted marketing. As van Dijck and Nieborg emphasise, 'Google is less interested in co-creation or content than it is in people making connections - connections that yield valuable information about who they are and what they are interested in' (Van Dijck & Nieborg 2009, p. 865).
This is also why YouTube users are becoming 'citizens of Google' through attempts to synchronise users' Google and YouTube identities. Specifically, it is possible to sign into YouTube either via a special YouTube account or via a Google account. Within the 'Google layer,' attempts are thus made to create a world in
which everyone is identifiable through the same online account. This makes online preferences even more traceable through a broad variety of online activities and the data, due to its target-marketing value, even more profitable. We can thus expect that in the future the tourism industry will need to pay ever greater attention to specialised, niche and segmented marketing, since the online audiences will be ever more specifically defined.
Labour Commodification
YouTube LLC also commodifies free online labour. On YouTube, Andrejevic (2009, p. 419) argues, 'users are offered a medium of control over the product of their creative activity in exchange for the work they do in building up an online community and sociality upon a privately controlled networked structure.' Attempts at commodification of free online labour are part of the discourse of 'crowdsourcing,' whereby the focus is upon direct enthusiasm over its 'potential to exploit a crowd of innovators' (Brabham, 2008, p. 75).
However, not all users' labour is free. YouTube shares advertising revenues with its 'YouTube partners.' In the past, users needed to apply for partnership and if they showed themselves commercially profitable, either by having already become popular with YouTube users or by being an influential player in terms of 'popular or commercially successful' content
provision outside of YouTube, they were accepted as YouTube partners.
Now there is no application procedure, yet users need to comply with following criteria:
Your YouTube channel may be eligible for the YouTube Partner Program if it meets the following criteria (http://support.google.com/youtube /bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=82839):3
•	The program has launched in your country. (If the program is not available in your country, you will see a notification in your mon-etization settings.)
•	Your account is in good standing and hasn't previously been disabled for monetization.
•	You upload original, quality content that is advertiser-friendly.
•	Your video content complies with our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
•	You have reviewed our copyright education materials.
The mechanism of YouTube partnerships follows the mechanism of Google advertising described by Bermejo (2009, p. 148), whereby Google promotes those advertisements according to their previous performance. In other words, on YouTube 'the rich get richer.' Those who are already extremely popular are afforded additional techniques, such as the possibility of analysing user demographics, thus leading to the creation of targeted content.
YouTube partners are offered a variety of benefits, most importantly (a) 'monetisation' of their content by profiting from advertisements on their videos and channels and (b) additional promotion and inclusion in special advertising programs that run on YouTube, across the internet and offline. In relation to travel and tourism, this option is used mostly to 'semiprofessional travellers,' i.e. people who travel all over the world and publish commentaries and guides on tourism destinations.
3 For example, Slovenia is not a country in which the program has been launched, which is most likely due to the fact that it is a too small and thus not an interesting enough market.
External Commodification
YouTube llc also performs external commodifica-tion, since it is transforming communication medium that was not originally conceptualised in economic terms into a commodity that can be sold. In relation to tourism, this specifically means communication amongst tourists and amongst tourists and hosts.
YouTube llc thus transforms the sphere of word-of-mouth, such as expressing one's opinion on a tourism destination or sharing pictures and memories with family and friends, into a sphere that it controls and can be sold to tourism advertisers (this is even more true for tourism-specific social media such as TripAd-visor).
Conclusions
The 'tourist empowerment' thesis has become the main frame in which the discourse on social media and tourism is discussed. This research has argued that those who were most empowered with the introduction and popularisation of social media were their owners: YouTube llc and Google in the specific case of communication on YouTube.
This does not mean that we are not witnessing a shift in power relations amongst tourists and the tourism industry. It does mean, however, that by using social media tourists are not communicating in a social vacuum but in virtual environments that are popularised, controlled, regulated and formed by increasingly powerful social media intermediaries, such as YouTube llc or TripAdvisor llc.
It also means that tourism as an industry and a social force should be wary of the power that a global monopoly affords to these intermediaries (most specifically Google): from special promotions of larger industry players to setting the price for advertising; such power is in the hands of these intermediaries, not in the hands of tourists or tourism industry.
Finally, tourism as a social force, potentially promoting peace and understanding amongst peoples of the world, shouldbe more recognised when discussing social media. Such positive examples are social videos and commentaries on the beauties of a specific destination and hospitality of their peoples. The negative side of the same coin is examples of nationalistic,
racist and hostile discussions. We thus need more research on communication amongst tourists and hosts, tourists and tourists, and hosts and hosts, while simultaneously not losing focus on the role of the social intermediaries of such communication.
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Competitiveness of the Pomurska Region as a Tourist Destination
Ivan Turčan
Mlynska 3, 05342 Krompachy, Slovakia ivan. turcan@gmail.com
Doris Gomezelj Omerzel
University of Primorska, Faculty of Management, Slovenia doris.gomezelj@fm-kp.si
Major differences exist between the regions of Slovenia. Despite the Pomurska region being the least developed region (according to many statistical indexes), it is an attractive tourist destination. This research deals with the competitiveness of the Pomurska region as a tourist destination. An overview of the main concepts is discussed in the first part of the paper, and the characteristics of the region are also presented. The aim of the research is to analyse the position of the Pomurska region in the minds of tourism service providers. The answer is obtained via an analysis of individual factors of competitiveness. Research hypotheses are evaluated on the basis of simple paired t-test between the dimensions of the competitiveness of a tourist destination, which we have computed from several variables using the method of principal components. All the three hypotheses were confirmed, i.e. the Pomurska region as a tourist destination is (1) more competitive in the field of'natural and cultural resources' than in the field of 'created resources,' (2) more competitive in the field of 'resources' than in the field of 'management,' and (3) more competitive in the field of 'supporting resources' than in the field of 'created resources.' Keywords: tourist destination; competitiveness; competitiveness model; Pomurska region
Introduction
Although the Pomurska region is a relatively undeveloped region (according to many statistical indexes), it is an attractive tourist destination. According to Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 10% of all overnight stays in Slovenia in 2011 were recorded in the Pomurska region (Statistični urad Republike Slovenije, 2011). This number could increase in the future. However, for a region in which health tourism has the most prominent role, the improvement of other competitive advantage factors is necessary. This would positively contribute to the overall development of the region. To realise possible tourism projects with significant po-
tential in the Pomurska region, it is essential to employ knowledge, to have a professional approach and to include friendly local people, who (are in addition to natural resources) the greatest asset for tourism development in the region.
When reviewing the literature, we have found various research and papers about the development of the Pomurska region. However, we have not found any that deal with the competitiveness of the region as a tourist destination. Therefore, we have decided to carry out this research.
The aim of the research is to present the state of the art in the tourism sector in the Pomurska region, re-
garding other competing regions and regarding Slovenia as a tourist destination.
The main objectives are:
•	to evaluate the individual factors of competitiveness in the Pomurska region according to tourist service providers,
•	to determine in which areas of competitiveness the Pomurska region as a tourist destination is below average, on average or above average.
Literature Review
According to Bieger (2000), tourist destination is a geographical space, which is chosen by tourists as a target of their journey. It offers them entertainment and everything they need for living. Some other authors also define it as a geographical space. Gunn (1994) defines a tourist destination as a geographical area in which the main elements are one or more places with public services, a set of attractions and transport connections that link places and attractions. The entire development in the destination is focused on guests and in satisfying their needs. In order to pursue development, all elements must be present, and consistency and quality between them must be established. Van-hove (2005) argues that a tourist destination is a geographical area in which tourists enjoy in various types of tourist experiences. Keller (1998) states that a destination is a target selected by the tourist on the basis of tourist attractions offered by the destination. Hu and Ritchie (1993) present a somewhat different definition. According to them, a destination is a combination of tourist facilities and services, which consists of various multi-dimensional features.
The aim of a tourism policy should be to increase competitiveness through the higher quality and innovations in tourism services (Kumral & Özlem Ön-der, 2009). Hall (2008) points out three reasons a great deal of attention should be given to the policy. The first is to understand the creation of decisions and their influences. The second is to provide information about practical solutions to problems and to implement them in the process. The third is to understand the interests and values that are included in the policy and planning process. Governments should
be involved in tourism for social, environmental and economic reasons. Tourism has an approximately 10% share of the global economy, and it has the subsequent effects on the communities and the environment with which it is connected.
In the previous decade, there has been increasing interest in the concept of the competitive destination in the tourism literature; furthermore, a need to add a specific definition of the competitiveness of the tourist destinations to the traditional definitions of competitiveness has appeared.
Competitiveness has become a focal point for tourism policy. With increasing competition and tourist activity, tourism policy is focusing on improving competitiveness through the safekeeping of assets, control and growth of quality and efficiency in the industry (Vanhove, 2005). Competitiveness has a direct impact on the success of tourist destinations in the international market (Armenski, Gomezelj Omerzel, Djur-djev, Đeri, & Dragin, 2011). For a tourist destination to be competitive, it is essential to ensure the sustainable development of tourism from both economic and ecological as well as cultural, social and political perspectives (Dwyer & Kim, 2003). Ritchie and Croutch (2003) argue that a tourist destination becomes competitive by using its ability to increase tourist consumption to attract more visitors and provide them an unforgettable experience, by increasing the well-being of locals, and by preserving natural resources for future generations. In the literature, we can find several definitions of destination competitiveness. Ritchie and Crouch (2003) have developed a model that distinguishes the comparative advantage from the competitive advantage. This model is an attempt to include all relevant factors that may define the competitiveness of tourist destinations. Hassan (2000) defines the competitiveness of a tourist destination as the ability of the destination to create and increase the added value of existing products with continuous maintenance of all its resources and by maintaining the market position with regard to competitors. Dwyer, Forsyth and Rao (2000) argue that the competitiveness of a tourist destination is a common concept, which involves differences in prices combined with exchange rate fluctuations, the productivity of various components of
the tourism industry and other factors that determine the attractiveness of a destination. Pearce (1997) describes the competitiveness of a destination with techniques that can be used to analyse and compare the different features of destinations that are competitive. Thereby, the comparison and evaluation of relevant tourist elements contribute to a better understanding of competitive advantages, which us conductive to the development of tourism policy. Poon (1993) believes that it is extremely beneficial to follow the 'new' type of tourism in order to achieve competitiveness. This kind of tourism is extremely flexible, durable and, unlike mass tourism, it is focused on the individual. If a destination wants to be competitive, the environment should be given top priority. Tourism has to become a leading economic sector. Distribution channels on the market must be strengthened, and a dynamic private sector must be created.
Competitive advantage as a management concept is frequently discussed in current literature. The reasons for this increased interest are the rapid changes that enterprises and destinations are facing, the complexity of the business environment, the impact of globalisation, changing customer needs, increased competition, the rapid development of information and communication technologies and open global markets (Kahreh, Ahmadi, & Hashemi, 2011). Managers must control the general situation of the industry or destination, and they need to compare its performance with demand on the market. They must examine their own organisations in comparison with others in order to determine key functions for achieving success (Spulber, 2009). A competitive advantage exists when an enterprise or destination offers a product or service that is perceived by the target markets as better in quantity and/or quality than the products or services of their competitors (Dess, Lumpkin, & Taylor, 2005). Porter sees a competitive advantage as a strategic objective. He believes that it is strongly linked to the performance of enterprises (Kahreh et al., 2011).
Spulber (2009) argues that there are generally three sources of competitive advantage. The first is the cost-effectiveness that provides more efficient use of resources; the second is product differentiation, which increases the benefit of consumers; the third is inno-
vation in transactions that create new combinations of demand and supply. According to Lesakova (2011), the competitive advantages arise from the choice of the markets, from the extraordinary authority of enterprises or destinations, and from the way enterprises or destinations are using resources that provide them better reviews and reputations compared to other competitors.
Comparative advantages of the destination emerge from natural resources. These are extremely powerful comparative advantages, because they are the reason visitors leave the destination with a positive experience. It can be argued that such advantages are, for example, climate, landscape and nature. It must be remembered that both comparative and competitive advantages do not last forever. Due to various changes and impacts on the environment, such advantages can be generated, but also lost. Hunt indicates this risk, stating that comparative advantages are lost due to weakness or poor use of internal factors in the form of failed investments of enterprises, the resulting uncertainty, and doubts or failure to adapt (Vodeb, 2010).
Models of Destination Competitiveness
Several authors have devoted themselves to the development of various models related to the competitiveness of tourism destinations. However, an optimal model does not exist. Each of them differs depending on how many and what kind of variables were used in their creation. Gooroochurn and Sugiyarto (2004) have created a valuation model of competitiveness, which includes eight factors: price, openness of the economy, technological development, structure, social development, human development in tourism, the environment, and human resources. Enright and Newton (2004) have developed a quantitative model for measuring competitiveness. It is based on the identification of the main competitors, attractions and enterprises that have influence on competitiveness of destinations. Go and Govers (1999) have measured competitiveness by factors that are particularly salient for congress and convention tourism. They have divided them into seven groups: quality of hotels, quality of services, accessibility of destination, diversity of
supply, the image of destination, climate, and the environment and attractiveness of the destination. Johns and Mattsson (2005) have established the competitiveness of destinations in accordance with the quantitative performance, based on the numbers of tourist arrivals and revenues. They also recognise the necessity to evaluate the qualitative aspect. Kozak and Rem-mington (1999) represent the view of tourist destination competitiveness that is based on two main factors. These are the primary (climate, environment, culture, heritage) and special factors of the tourism sector (hotels, transport and others). In a model that used fishing tourism as an example, Melian-Gonzales and Garcia-Falcón (2003) describe destination resources as a combination of natural and cultural resources. Hassan (2000) focuses on the environment and factors of sustainable tourism, dividing them into the following groups: comparative advantages (factors of micro and macro environment), the orientation of demand (destination flexibility by changing demand), the structure of the tourism sector (organisation of tourism) and care of the environment.
The most comprehensive model is undoubtedly Crouch and Ritchie's model, which was first presented in 1993 at the Congress of the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism (Association Internationale d'Experts Scientifiques du Tourisme). The model consists of five main groups (resources of attraction, supporting factors, tourist destinations policy, management, and restrictive or expansion factors) that affect the competitiveness of tourist destinations (Ritchie % Crouch, 2003). In their model, De Keyser and Vanhove (1994) have included macroe-conomic factors, supply factors, demand factors, factors of tourism policy and transport factors. Among the main factors, Heath (2003) has ranked key attractions and their management, health and safety aspects of tourist destinations, infrastructure, supporting services (accommodation and transport facilities, distribution channels, etc.), key factors of perceived experience, partnerships and alliances and communication between them, research, measuring and monitoring of performance. He also added the political, legal, financial and organisational frameworks of the tourist destination, and the investment climate.
In our research, we will use the so-called integrated model of competitiveness of tourist destination (Dwyer & Kim, 2003). It includes resources (natural, cultural, created, supporting), management (government, economy), environment and demand.
Presentation of the Pomurska Region
The Pomurska region is the most north-eastern region of Slovenia, consisting of three main natural geographical units: Goričko, Lendavske Gorice and Murska Ravan, which is divided in two parts by the Mura River. The region borders with Austria on the northwest, with Hungary on northeast and east, with Croatia on south and with the Podravska region on southwest. The region consists of four units (Murska Sobota, Lendava, Ljutomer and Gornja Radgona) and has twenty seven municipalities. It is characterised by a typical continental climate with warm summers and cold winters.
The competitiveness of the region is weakened by a low level of education and a low interest in education. There are no institutions of higher education or research activities. In the development program, the Regional Development Agency Mura has therefore set the objectives such as increasing the quality of education, long-life learning and the development of higher education infrastructure and functioning of higher education institutions (Regionalna razvojna agencija Mura, 2007).
The economy of the Pomurska region is in a difficult situation. The performance of local companies has decreased in recent years; manufacturing used to be essential, but due to the current economic crisis, many companies and enterprises have found themselves in financial and economic difficulties.
The quality of soil, mineral and thermal waters for health and spa services and for hydropower utilisation are natural resources of enormous importance for the Pomurska region. Tourism is one of the key opportunities for the region, contributing not only to economic but also to social development. Health and spa tourism is highly developed in the region, especially in Moravske Toplice, Radenci, Lendava and Banovci. These resorts account for 22% of all overnight stays in Slovenian health resorts and spas (Vodeb, 2007).
Cooperation and interlinking with thermal resorts and spas in Austria, Croatia and Hungary would contribute to further development.
It is necessary to include cultural heritage and natural values in the offer of tourism services. Many countries have adopted a strategy for integrating new economic alternatives and achieving greater diversity of activities in order to prevent massive migration from rural areas to larger cities (Iorio & Corsale, 2010). One alternative is rural tourism, which has an enormous potential for development, especially along wine routes, where wine culture and fruit growing are popular. Tourist farms are the main suppliers, and tourism is only a secondary activity. According to Belec (1996), border areas are distinctive because of their natural, geographical, historical, administrative and political characteristics, population structure, cross-border traffic flows, etc. Laws (1995) argues that the power of the destination to create new forms of tourism and entertain new tourists depends on the economic and social diversity and on attractions that can be offered. Border areas are attractive mainly because of their natural and cultural features that are different than that of the home countries of visiting tourists. The Pomurska region possesses a sizeable potential to develop cross-border services and products, which could contribute to the competitiveness of the region (Služba Vlade Republike Slovenije za lokalno samoupravo in regionalno politiko, 2010). Due to increased competition, new tourist products must be developed. Local enterprises should be included, which would also help to create a new job opportunities. Besides the geothermal and other renewable sources of energy and competitive agriculture, tourism is highlighted as significant competitive advantage of the region.
The delays in the development in the transport, environmental and business infrastructure are the main weaknesses that hinder accelerated development of the Pomurska region.
Toward the Research Hypotheses
In our study, six dimensions of tourism destination competitiveness were included: (1) natural and cultural resources, (2) created resources, (3) supporting resources, (4) management, (5) environment, and (6)
demand. While still not entirely complete, they describe and measure the most salient dimensions of tourism destination competitiveness. Based on the literature review, the above discussion and mostly on the research on competitiveness of Slovenia as a tourism destination (Gomezelj & Mihalič, 2008), the following hypotheses are proposed.
hypothesis 1 The Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of 'natural and cultural resources' than in the field of 'constructed resources.' hypothesis 2 The Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of'resources' than in the field of 'management.' hypotheses 3 The Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of 'supporting resources' than in the field of 'constructed resources.'
Research Methodology
The methodology is discussed in terms of data collection process, sample description and data analysis. Based on the aim of the research and the developed hypotheses, the conceptual tourism destination competitiveness model was empirically verified on the sample of tourism enterprises in the Pomurska region.
Data Collection
For gathering data, we have used a questionnaire distributed personally at the beginning of 2012 to tourism experts and practitioners in the Pomurska region. The register of tourism enterprises (629) was obtained from the online database of the Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public Legal Records and Related Services. The register included hotels and other accommodation facilities, tourist farms, apartments and private rooms, restaurants, cafes, patisseries, bars, travel agencies, museums and galleries. Therefore, the research sample was composed of stakeholders on the supply side of the tourism industry.
We have adopted the questionnaire from Gomezelj and Mihalič (2008, pp. 294-307). At the beginning, the questionnaire covered some socio-demographic characteristics, such as gender, age, level of education, oc-
cupation and amount time of working in the tourism industry.
The respondents answered questions by using five-point Likert scale. Based on the integrated model, 65 questions about the competitiveness of the Pomurska region as a tourist destination were divided into six sets: natural and cultural resources (9 questions), created resources (22 questions), supporting resources (8 questions), management (15 questions), environment (8 questions) and demand (3 questions).
From a total of 250 questionnaires, 173 were returned, which represents a 69.2% response rate. Nineteen of them were not completed entirely; therefore,i54 questionnaires were included in the analysis.
Sample Description
The competitiveness of destinations is most often evaluated from the tourist's point of view. However, the target group of our research represent tourism service providers. Of the total number of respondents, 92 were woman (59.74%) and 62 were men (40.26%). The average age of women was 34.44 years and of men 35.27 years. There were five people younger than 20 years of age, which is 3.25% of all respondents. In the age group of 20 to 30 years, there were 52 respondents or 33.77%. The largest group of respondents, 56 or 36.36%, was 31 to 40 years of age. Twenty eight respondents (18.18%) were from 41 to 50. In the group from 51 to 60 years of age, there were 11 respondents (7.14%), and two (1.30%) were over 61 years of age.
Eighty-two respondents (53.25%), i.e. a majority, had finished high school. One (0.65%) had completed only primary school, while 31 (20.13%) had finished higher vocational school. Higher education had been achieved by 37 (24.03%) of respondents, and three (1.95%) had obtained a master's degree.
The largest group of respondents, 86 (55.84%) worked in the hospitality sector. Six (3.90%) were employed in travel agencies. A total of 31 (20.13%) worked in the accommodation sector, 20 (12.99%) in services connected with tourism, and 11 (7.14%) on tourist farms. Six of 11 tourist farms were also offering accommodation.
Of all respondents, most had worked in the tourism industry for more than one and less than ten years,
Table 1 Natural and Cultural Resources
Factor	(1)	(2)
Folk tradition	З.96	0.90
Natural environment	З.95	0.8З
Suitability of the climate for tourism	З.7З	0.88
Fauna in flora	З.71	0.86
Tidiness and cleanliness of the environment	З.64	0.8З
Cultural heritage	З.45	0.8З
Art and architectural sights	З.З5	0.88
Historical position and importance	З.ЗЗ	0.85
National parks	2.93	1.04
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) arithmetic mean, (2) standard deviation.
represented by 88 respondents (57.14%). Three (1.95%) respondents had been employed in tourism less than one year, while 42 (27.27%) had worked in tourism more than 11 but less than 20 years. Sixteen (10.39%) respondents had worked more than 21 but less than 30 years, and five had worked in the industry for 31 years or more.
Data Analysis
Natural and Cultural Resources
The natural and cultural resources group contained nine factors of competitiveness. The highest rating in the group was achieved by the factor 'folk traditions,' with an average rating of 3.96. This is followed by 'natural environment' (3.95), 'climate suitability for tourism' (3.73), and 'fauna and flora' (3.71). These factors represent the basis of the primary tourist resources. In combination with folk traditions, they are essential of creating a secondary tourist supply and high quality tourist products. The only factor ranked below average was 'national parks' with an average of 2.93. The standard deviation is relatively high (1.04), which indicates that the respondents were not particularly unified in their answers.
Created Resources
In the created resources group, the highest ranking was measured by the factors 'health tourism' (4.21) and 'rural tourism' (4.05). These results were expected,
as spas and health resorts are immensely popular in the Pomurska region not only among locals, but also among foreign visitors. They also significantly contribute to the overall number of overnight stays in Slovenia. The region, which has so many thermal sources, could be extremely attractive for investors seeking to build more similar health facilities. Massive potential remains in the already well-developed rural tourism. Both rural and health tourism depend very much on the aforementioned natural resources, which were all ranked above average. This represents a positive sign for their further development. The factor with the lowest average was 'winter activities offer' (2.06), which is not surprising considering the low-lying terrain of the region. Low scores were attained by the factors 'adrenaline activities offer' (2.29), 'casinos' (2.25) and 'nightlife' (2.29). Unlike the winter activities offered, tourists can most directly influence them or encourage their development.
However, we believe that any new investments in this field would be unnecessary. It is essential to maintain already existing facilities. We suggest that in the case of created resources it is necessary to focus on health and spa tourism, rural tourism, and the development of outdoor activities and recreational opportunities. These are the factors with the strongest tradition and have the best potential for the further development and promotion of tourism in the region. Speaking of factors that achieved below-average ratings, we see opportunity in more frequent organisation of festivals and special events, which could be combined, for instance, with cuisine; this already has a strong position in the region. Together with local residents, they could create attractive tourist attractions. In order to develop tourism in the region, it is necessary to improve the efficiency and quality of local transport.
Supporting Factors
The highest ranked factor in this group was 'hospitality of the locals' with an average score of 4.20. The lowest average ranking was measured by the factor 'animation' (2.70), which is the result of a deficit of certain tourism products. It could be improved with the organisation of festivals and special events, as stated
Table 2 Created Resources
Factor	(1)	(2)
Health tourism	4.21	0.86
Rural tourism	4.05	0.86
Cuisine	4.01	0.91
Opportunities for recreation	З.70	0.8З
Quality and variety of accommodation facilities	З.58	0.79
Offer of restaurants, bars, cafes, etc	З.51	0.94
Outdoor activities offer	З.48	0.92
Water activities offer	3.34	1.12
Availability of natural attractions	З.З4	0.78
Sport activities	З.З1	0.8З
Shopping opportunities	З.14	0.84
Access to tourist information	З.10	0.7З
Festivals, special events	2.97	0.90
Support of the locals by organizing special events	2.97	0.89
Entertainment (theaters, cinemas, etc.)	2.86	0.77
Efficiency and quality of local transport	2,60	0,90
Access to the airports	2.47	0.94
Entertainment and theme parks	2.40	0.84
Adrenaline activities offer	2.29	1.0З
Nightlife	2.29	0.9З
Casinos	2.25	0.9З
Winter activities offer	2.06	0.99
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) arithmetic mean, (2) standard deviation.
in the previous section. The factor 'accessibility of the Pomurska region as a destination (transport connections)' was ranked slightly above average, but we should not be satisfied with that result. It is necessary to establish new transport links, particularly take advantage of the main railroad with international connections. Other factors in the group have achieved above-average ratings.
Management
The only factor that was ranked with an average of 3.05 was 'level of development of social tourism.' All 14 other factors have achieved below-average ratings.
Table 3 Supporting Factors
Factor	(1)	(2)
Hospitality of the local residents	4.20	0.85
Communication and trust between the	3.40	0.77
tourists and the local population		
Access to the telecommunications network	3.34	0.83
Quality of tourist services	3.24	0.83
Access to health care	3.23	0.79
Availability of financial institutions (banks,	3.08	0.82
exchange offices, etc.)		
Accessibility of Pomurska region as a	3.02	0.80
destination (transport connections)		
Animation	2.70	0.75
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) arithmetic mean, (2) standard deviation.
In general, factors from the management group were the worst rated of all those included in the questionnaire. The factor 'investments of foreign enterprises in tourism' was given the lowest average rating (2.47). Better ratings were given to the factors 'quality of research in the field of tourism' (2.68) and 'awareness of the public sector on the importance of sustainable tourism development' (2.65). the answers of the respondents were fairly unified.
The below-average rating of the factor 'level of cooperation between enterprises' (2.71) is not satisfying. This factor is crucial, especially with regards to small providers of tourism products and services, which is also emphasised in the swot analysis carried out by the Regional Development Agency. They consider this factor to be a significant opportunity for regional development. Service and product providers could offer a more varied range of tourism services, and they would be more competitive and benefit from common advertising, which would mean direct reductions of costs. In the case of more effective linkage between enterprises, the factor 'development and promotion of tourism products' (2.91) could have certainly achieved a better rating; thus, it was ranked as the seventh most competitive in the group. The below-average rating of 'education' (2.79) has confirmed what we have reported about in the chapter about education structure
Table 4 Management
Factor	(1)	(2)
Level of development of social tourism	3.05	0.84
Correspondency of tourism development with the needs and requirments of the tourists	2.99	0.77
Effectiveness of tourism enterprises	2.97	0.72
Support of locals in tourism development	2.97	0.80
Awareness of the private sector on importance of sustainable tourism development	2.94	0.79
Development and promotion of new tourism products	2.91	0.80
Correspondency of tourism development with the needs and requirements of capital	2.90	0.78
Correspondency of tourism development with the needs and requirements ofsociety	2.86	0.76
Correspondency of tourism development with the needs and requirements of the local residents	2.84	0.75
Educational structure of employees in	2.79	0.83
tourism enterprises		
Efficiency and ability of managers in tourism.	2.78	0.83
The level of cooperation between enterprises.	2.71	0.82
Quality of research in tourism.	2.68	0.77
Awareness of the public sector on importance of sustainable tourism development	2.65	0.75
Investments by foreign companies in tourism.	2.47	0.86
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) arithmetic mean, (2) standard deviation.
of the Pomurska region in the theoretical part of the thesis. The majority of employees in the tourism sector have completed the middle level of education; the lack of skilled labour and not the departure of highly educated staff represent a massive threat. The low level of education is associated with the below-average rating of the factor 'efficiency and ability of managers in tourism' (2.78), which directly affects the factor 'effectiveness of tourism enterprises.'
Environment
The environment group includes economic, social, cultural, demographic, political, legal, technological factors and the other factors of the wider environ-
Table 5 Environment
Factor	(1)	(2)
Safety of tourists.	3.86	0.90
Political stability.	3.21	0.99
Price and quality of accommodation facilities	3.08	0.77
ratio.		
Price and quality of tourist services ratio.	3.04	0.74
Using of information technologies in tourism	3.00	0.55
enterprises.		
Electronic marketing in tourism enterprises.	2.99	0.77
Cooperation between the public and private	2.74	0.76
sectors.		
Interest of investors to invest in tourism	2.48	0.83
enterprises.		
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) arithmetic mean, (2) standard deviation.
ment. The 'interest of investors to invest in tourism enterprises' factor was ranked with the lowest score of 2.48, which is another threat to the Pomurska region. This is the result of the weak effectiveness of the policy and non-simulating climate for investment in existing facilities or for the creation of new ones. The fragmentation of enterprises and of the offer of tourism services is the reason the factor 'cooperation between public and private sector' was evaluated as being below average (2.74). The only opportunity for improvement is through the common goals of regional development. The 'safety of the tourists' factor was ranked with an average of 3.86, which is the highest rank in the environment group. Standard deviance was 0.90, which means that respondents' answers varied considerably. The average of the competing regions was achieved in the factor 'using of information technologies in tourism enterprises' for which answers were mostly concentrated around the average. The factors of 'price and quality of accommodation ratio' (3.08) and 'price and quality of tourist services ratio' (3.04) were both ranked a little above average and the answers were fairly unified.
Demand
Respondents have given 'image of the Pomurska region as a tourist destination' the highest rating (3.29).
Table 6 Demand
Factor	(1) (2)
Image of the Pomurska region as a tourist	3.29 0.93 destination.
Recognition of Pomurska region tourist offer	3.23 0.85 in Slovenia.
Recognition of Pomurska region in Slovenia.	3.16 0.89
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) arithmetic mean, (2) standard deviation.
Table 7 Total Variance Explained in the new Variables
New variable	(1)	(2)	(3)
Natural and cultural	0.866	48.28%	0.582 to 0.806
resources			
Created resources	0.788	23.88%	0.383 to 0.625
Supporting resources	0.752	37.45%	0.492 to 0.753
Management	0.879	42.94%	0.499 to 0.811
Environment	0.669	38.67%	0.340 to 0.780
Demand	0.706	73.16%	0.821 to 0.876
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) k mo, (2) share of total variance explained (in the new variables, obtained by principal component analysis), (3) factor loadings.
In the second place, they classified 'recognition of the Pomurska region's tourist offer in Slovenia' (3.23), and in the third 'recognition of Pomurska region in Slovenia' (3.16). All factors have achieved above-average ratings, which is particularly encouraging for the further marketing activities of providers in tourism and the competent authorities. However, a relatively high standard deviation indicates that the thoughts of respondents were not unified.
Findings
In order to test the hypotheses by using principal component analysis, we have set six new variables. Table 7 shows the share of variability of all variables we have covered.
We have tested hypotheses by using a paired-samples t-test. The aim was to test the null hypothesis that the arithmetic mean of one variable is equal to the arithmetic mean of the other variable.
hypothesis 1 The Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of
Table 8 T-Test Results for Hypothesis 1
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (б) (7) (8) 0.476 0.567 0.0457 0.386 0.5661210.414 153 0.000
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) mean, (2) standard deviation, (3) standard error mean, (4) upper 95% confidence interval of the difference, (5) lower 95% confidence interval of the difference, (6) t, (7) df, (8) significance (2-tailed).
natural and cultural resources' than in the field of created resources.'
We define the null hypothesis (но) and the alternative hypothesis (ha).
но The arithmetic mean of the variable 'natural and cultural resources' is equal to the arithmetic mean ofvariable 'created resources.'
ha The arithmetic mean of the variable 'natural and cultural resources' is higher than the arithmetic mean of variable 'created resources.'
By using a paired-samples t-test (Table 8), we have ascertained that the average value of the difference between two variables is 0.48 and the standard deviation has a value of 0.57. The lower confidence limit with 95% confidence is 0.39; the upper limit is 0.57. The value of the two-tailed statistical significance is 0.000.
Therefore, we can confirm hypothesis hi, i.e. that the Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of 'natural and cultural resources' than in the field of 'created resources.'
hypothesis 2 The Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of'resources' than in the field of 'management.'
We define the null hypothesis (н0) and the alternative hypothesis (ha).
H0 The arithmetic mean of the variable 'resources' is equal to the arithmetic mean of variable management.'
ha The arithmetic mean of the variable 'resources' is higher than the arithmetic mean of variable 'management.'
A paired-samples t-test of the variables 'resources' and 'management' showed that the average value of
Table 9 T-Test Results for Hypothesis 2
(1)	(2) (3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)
0.355	0.454 0.0з66	0.28з	0.428	9-714	153	0.000
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) mean, (2) standard deviation, (3) standard error mean, (4) upper 95% confidence interval of the difference, (5) lower 95% confidence interval of the difference, (6) t, (7) df, (8) significance (2-tailed).
Table 10 T-Test Results for Hypothesis 3
(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)
0.189	0.427	0.034	0.122	0.258	5-515	153	0.000
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) mean, (2) standard deviation, (3) standard error mean, (4) upper 95% confidence interval of the difference, (5) lower 95% confidence interval of the difference, (6) t, (7) df, (8) significance (2-tailed).
difference between the two is 0.36 with a standard deviation of 0.45. As in the first case, level of confidence is 95%, and the level of two-tailed statistical significance is 0.000.
We confirm Hypothesis H2 that the Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of 'resources' than in the field of 'management.'
hypothesis 3 The Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of 'supporting resources' than in the field of 'created resources.'
We define the null hypothesis (H0) and the alternative hypothesis (ha).
H0 The arithmetic mean of the variable 'supporting resources' is equal to the arithmetic mean of variable 'created resources.'
ha The arithmetic mean of the variable 'supporting resources' is higher than the arithmetic mean of variable 'created resources.'
The results of t-test between variables 'supporting resources' and 'created resources' indicate that the average value of the difference between the two variables is 0.190 with a standard deviation of 0.43. The level of confidence is 95%, and the two-tailed statistical significance is 0.000.
We confirm Hypothesis H3 that Pomurska region as a tourist destination is more competitive in the field of 'supporting resources' than in the field of 'created resources.'
Research Limitation and Implications
No competitiveness research had been conducted in the Pomurska region prior to this paper; consequently, these research results will be useful for private and government entities responsible for the development of tourism.
However, the study has the following limitations: (1) regarding the questionnaire: factors were computed on the basis of data collected with a questionnaire that used perceptual measures, which are subjective in nature; (2) time of research: the acquired data represent evaluations on a certain date (cross-sectional studyde-sign), which means that our study lacks a longitudinal component; (3) sample: only the stakeholders from the supply side were included in our research. Despite these limitations, this study makes significant contributions and implications.
For the future, we suggest research surveying more groups of respondents. It would be useful to include visitors, and local residents, who have experience in the destination.
Conclusion
This research has indicated what the potential for the development of the Pomurska region is, and what the region's advantages and disadvantages are. We have analysed the competitiveness of the region as a tourist destination by using data obtained from questionnaires. 'Health tourism' was ranked with the highest value among all factors. Irrespective of the sector in which respondents were employed or how long they had been working in the tourism industry, every one of them was aware of the strong position of the spas and health resorts in the region and of the potential for their further development. Rural tourism is the second strongest asset of the region. In combination with the other factors from the created resources group, especially with factors 'outdoor activities' and 'recreational opportunities,' tourist products for a wide segment of visitors could be established. 'Cuisine' was also evalu-
ated with a high average rating. Together with health tourism, it contributes significantly to the recognition of the Pomurska region's range of tourism products in Slovenia and to the recognition of the Pomurska region as a whole. All factors from the natural and cultural resources group, except one ('national parks'), have been ranked above average. This indicates that people are aware of the natural and cultural wealth of the region, which creates high-quality primary tourist services. It is necessary to protect nature and to use it in the most appropriate and efficient ways for tourism purposes. In the supporting resources group, 'hospitality of the local residents' has been rated as the best factor. We can also confirm this from our own experience in personal contact with respondents during the questionnaire distribution. Tourism is created by people, and it is their hospitality and kindness that can often turn an ordinary vacation into something unique and unforgettable. The second-best rated factor is the 'communication and trust between tourists and local residents.' These two factors have an enormous influence on the overall quality of provided services. Visitors will return to the destination only when they feel comfortable and absolutely safe. It is clear that economic recessions, financial crises, terrorist attacks or wars cause a significant decrease of tourism activity, and they can paralyse it for several years. 'Safety of tourists' and 'political stability' are the two most highly rated factors in the environment group. All stated factors are strengths of the region and contribute considerably to its competitiveness.
For more effective tourism development and increased competitiveness of the region, it is beneficial to highlight the factors that have been rated below-average. We have already mentioned that it is necessary to take care of the attractiveness of the primary tourism products and to increase the efficiency of supporting resources. It is a matter of concern that except for the 'level of social tourism development' factor, all other factors from the management group have achieved below-average rankings. In general, they were rated the worst of all the factors obtained in the questionnaire. The lowest ranking was given to the 'investments of foreign enterprises in tourism' factor. This result was not a surprise, because in the
whole of Slovenia there are exceedingly few foreign investors who would be interested in investing in tourism. Moreover, the Pomurska region is also in a weak position regarding investments in the other sectors of the economy. More research and analyses in tourism are essential, and particular attention should be given to education and training of employees. A tourism enterprise can only be effective if people who work there are effective. Research has shown that the level of cooperation between enterprises is low. The factor of 'cooperation of private and public sector' was also ranked below-average. It is necessary for all interested parties to come together and work together. Cooperation is the only way they can increase their own competitiveness and, with more varied and wider range of tourist products, they can contribute to the competitiveness of the region. The image of the Pomurska region would be strengthened, and it would be eventually recognised as a tourist destination.
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Planning and Development of the Golf Tourism Destination
Armand Faganel
University of Primorska, Faculty of Management, Slovenia armand.faganel@gmail. com Nataša Slak Valek
spirit Slovenia, Slovenia natasa.slak@gmail.com
The purpose of this paper is to better understand golfers' expectations and experiences in Slovenia and to propose the development of a golf tourism destination strategy. The methods used are a hierarchical cluster analysis with Ward's method, the analysis of variance (anova), comparative method, literature review and case study. Based on 900 golfer surveys, we identified four behavioural market segments, and assessed the country's potential to become known as a golf tourism destination. It has been ascertained that Slovenia has atypical golfers. Having in mind the recent social changes, tourism stakeholders must plan the viability of destination development for decades ahead. As the number of golf courses increases, golfers will be seeking unique experiences. Slovenia is easily accessible, positioned centrally to the majority of European countries, and road connections are excellent, but there is a lack of regular flights to the main airport. Tourism strategy developers will be able to use the findings in their planning phases of determining Slovenia as a tourism destination. This paper will also be of immense interest for planners in other countries and sport disciplines.
Keywords: tourism; segmentation; marketing strategy; golf destination; Slovenia
Introduction
Golf is a global leisure activity and professional sport; nowadays, a great many destinations worldwide are developing golf tourism. Since many countries have begun pushing the construction of golf courses and have been attempting to evolve with golf tourism in recent years, Slovenia has not kept pace. Slovenia is a small country but with decidedly clearly defined aims in tourism, in which golf tourism remain a relative novelty. Today, Slovenia has 15 golf courses on 20,273 km2 and two million residents. However, the main question is whether these golf courses are sufficient to develop the country in a respected golf destination?
The sport of golf has emerged as a vast tourism
draw and a source of revenue that many tourism destinations have found difficult to resist (Readman, 2003). Molina Huertas, Del Campo Gomis, López Lluch, and Agulló Torres (2010) assessed the economic and social impact of the golf industry in a tourist destination; Sanchez-Medina, Romero-Quintero, and Gutiérrez-Padrón (2008) have studied the environmental management in golf courses. Golf is a well-developed sport in the usa and England both as a recreation sport or sport for all, and as a competitive sport (pga tours, lpga tour, European tours) that help the country to become recognised as a golf destination. The golf industry in Asia is quickly expanding with growing incomes and rising numbers of golf tourists (Ken Re-
search, 2012). The same is happening in the uk, Spain, Portugal and other European countries, but Slovenia has a problem with this orientation. Golf began to attract interest as tourist product in Slovenia only in the past 20 years, partly because golf has been perceived as a capitalist/bourgeois sport in socialist countries, but mostly because golf was not a particularly well-known or popular sport. Slovenia does not have many golfers (0.3% of Slovenian residents). The Slovene national sports are skiing, trekking, cycling; golf has long been neglected. However, Slovenian golf tourism has immense potential. Even more, we can affirm that golf tourism would allow Slovenia to become an even more prominent tourist destination that it is considered today.
Firstly, golf in Slovenia needs to be regarded as a sport for everybody; after that, we could begin to think about golf as a tourism product. Although golf in Slovenia is not recognised as an 'important' tourism product and sport category, the development of golf tourism should receive more effort. Finally, Slovenia should understand golf as a competitive or Olympic sport and profit from golf events as an important opportunity to increase its international visibility. Faganel and Trnavčevič (2012) report a planned golf course is to be built on the Slovenian seaside and placed on the border of a protected nature park; such a course could offer a winning experience to its visitors.
Golfers in Slovenia have been surveyed, and their behaviour analysed, as well as the perceptions of Slovenia as a tourism destination, with the potential to become a golf tourism destination. The utilisation of behavioural dimensions to segment travel markets can be a powerful tool in managing tourism (Hennessey, Macdonald, & Maceachern, 2008; Oh & Jeong, 2010). To develop new exciting golf courses and to become known for golf tourism destination takes time: years of well-planned actions, in fact. In order to formulate a specific development strategy, data about tourists' opinions must be obtained and their satisfaction measured. Once the country decides to become a golf tourism destination, the decision makers should be informed about which way to position their offer of golf facilities and services. In the study of Martinez Caro and Martinez Garcia (2007), different ways of
introducing such an effect into the cognitive satisfaction model have been presented: satisfaction as a mediator or as an independent factor. They made an empirical analysis of two rival models in order to better understand the consumer satisfaction process within the framework of a sporting event. The study showed that the key affective factor that determines satisfaction is 'arousal,' as opposed to 'pleasure,' which has an insignificant effect. The cognitive element is also crucial for determining satisfaction and future behaviour intentions, and all of the antecedents are independent in the satisfaction process.
With this aim in mind, we surveyed golf tourists in Slovenia, with an emphasis on researching their behaviour, perceptions, expectations and satisfaction. With the increasing competition for attracting patrons to golf destinations, it is becoming increasingly vital for managers to identify the variables that attract or retain golf travellers (Petrick & Backman, 2002a). By constructing a framework for the understanding of golf tourists, golf and tourism industry representatives can better understand the contribution that golfers make to a destination, based on factors such as satisfaction, perceived value received from the golfing experience, trip length, expenditures, travel decisions, and motivations (Hennessey et al., 2008).
Sinclair and Boger (2006) describe four areas that affect the development of a golf destination: the political economy, the environmental domain, the sociopolitical arena, and the sociological consequences. All these areas affect the growth of golf in Slovenia as well, but only a small number of people in Slovenia acknowledges how much golf can contribute to the country (development of tourism, tourism on a higher level, no seasonality, jobs, etc.). Golfing is a dynamic and growing activity for tourists globally and, if developed and marketed appropriately, it can become a highly successful and profitable niche tourism product (Hinch & Higham, 2001). Moreover, the market of traveling golfers has been steadily increasing. According to a us National Golf Foundation study (National Golf Foundation, 2012), 'demand for golf was stable though slightly down in 2009 versus the previous year.' Further: 'Golf remains the number one individual outdoor sport, with 27.1 million participants, 15.3 million
of whom play frequently (eight or more times a year)' (National Golf Foundation, 2012). They do not predict an increase or drop-off for the foreseeable future among American golfers. This is positive news for the golf industry and an significant potential market for a brand new golf tourism destination, since golfers are known to be frequent travellers. Many golfers around theworld arelooking fornew andnot-yet-experienced tourism countries and new golf courses. Based on these statistics, it is clear that golfers are a sizeable niche market that presents a significant opportunity to grow and maintain visitation to a destination, and generate substantial revenues for the tourism industry and government (Hennessey, et al., 2008). The average golfer is male, aged 47 years, classified as adult or senior; his partner and up to two other people of the family also play golf (Louis, 2005). This means that a typical golfer not only is a big spender, but usually is not traveling alone. The compelling question even for Slovenia is whether a golf vacation is a solely devoted to golf or if playing golf is one activity of many, as Gibson and Pennington-Gray (2008) suggest. Destination managers need to understand golf tourists in their country.
One of the most popular travel destinations for golfers is Florida (National Golf Foundation, 2006), and we can also say that it is a typical golf destination. In 2000, Florida was the largest golf travel market in the United States, with 3.12 million golf-playing visitors, at approximately usd 23 billion (Haydu & Hodges, 2002). Furthermore, not only golf tourists are part of the golf tourism industry, but also golf spectators. The biggest market for golf tourism is the usa and Japan, as 44% of the global golf market are us residents and 25% are Japanese (Readman, 2003). Strategic Networks Group (2009) found that golf courses earned gross revenue of $4.7 billion in 2008, which is more than 'skiing facilities' in Canada (usd 0.9B in 2006), more than 'fitness and recreational sports centres'(usd 1.7B in 2006), more than'amusement parks and arcades' (usd 0.4B in 2006). The European market of seven million golfers is even more important for Slovenia, as this number is three-and-a-half times that of all Slovene citizens.
However, when developing golf tourism, a country
or a tourism destination also has to look at other benefits deriving from golf. Koh, Yoo, and Boger (2010) identify visitor segments based on benefits they sought. Somewhat predictably, the explosion of golf in global participation has transformed the sport into a multibillion dollar industry that involves several transnational corporations associated not only with golf itself but also with overlapping businesses such as construction, agriculture, entertainment, hospitality, marketing and advertising (Wheeler & Nauright, 2006). Slovenia also should take into consideration those positive influences, but it must be understood that golf is no longer an 'exclusive' sport for high earners and that it is being played increasingly by people of all ages and all social backgrounds (Shaw & Anderson, 1995). Sinclair and Boger (2006) analysed the golf tourism prospects of Guyana and confirm that the limited golf infrastructure, the abbreviated scale of development plans for the facility, and the absence of golf tourism policy hinder the destinatio''s development. The tourism destinations that have developed golf tourism years ago rely on golfers as high earners and spenders, but a tourism destination such as Slovenia, which began to develop golf tourism only recently, should think about golf as a sport for everybody.
With increasing competition for attracting golf travellers to destinations, it is becoming increasingly urgent for managers to identify variables that attract or retain clientele to their sites (Petrick & Backman, 2002b). Market segmentation is a well-established marketing strategy (Kotler, Armstrong, & Cunningham, 2005). The National Golf Course Owners Association identifies several segments of golfers: occasional, core, avid, junior golfer and range user (http:// www.ngcoa.org/pageview.asp?doc=511). Utilising behavioural dimensions to segment travel markets can be a powerful tool in managing tourism destinations (Hennessey et al., 2008) and the specialisation of tourism products entails a need for segmentation of tourism markets (Buhalis, 2001). Consequently, we analysed golf players on Slovenian golf courses. The aim of the research was to determine what kind of golf tourists are coming to Slovenia, to discover their golf behaviour and the determinants that influence choosing Slovenia as a golf destination. Since this was the
first research conducted among golf players in Slovenia, the aim was also to determine what the consumption of the golfer per round is.
Methodology and Sample Frame
The data were collected with a field questionnaire on Slovenian golf courses in the summer of 2006, between July 2nd and September 7th. The owner of data is the Slovenian Tourist Board. At the time the data was collected, Slovenia had nine golf courses (9 and 18 holes),4 all of which were included in the survey. The survey was performed by qualified interviewers who attended a preparatory educational seminar and spoke at least one foreign language. The number of questionnaires per golf course was predetermined on the basis of the golf course size: 900 foreign and local golfers were included in the quota sample after finishing a game of golf. The fewest questionnaires were completed at the Castle Otočec golf course5 (50 questionnaires), and between 100 and 111 questionnaires were completed on the other eight golf courses. All the courses are evenly distributed throughout Slovenia, so the data can be considered representative for the whole of golf tourism.
The sample comprised 72% Slovenian golfers and 28% foreign golfers. Of the latter, 6.3% were from Croatia, 5.7% from Italy, 4.7% from Austria, 2.3% from the Czech Republic, 2.1% from Great Britain, and less than 2.0% from Germany, Slovakia, Bosnia, Switzerland, us a and elsewhere. The most significant presence of foreign golfers has been observed on the courses of Livada and Bled, where they represented more than 50.0% of all interviewees. The average age of Slovene interviewees was 45 years and 48 years for the foreign interviewees. One third (31.1%) of interviewees were women (Slovenian women 31.3% and foreign 30.7%). Most golfers were in the age range of 46-55 years old (31.6%), followed by the age range of 36-45 years old (23.2%); 19.2% were in the age range of 56-65 years old and 3.3% in the age range of 66+.
4	There are 15 golf courses in Slovenia today.
5	Castle Otočec Golf Course has 18 holes today, but at the time of survey taken, it was only a 9-hole golf course.
The questionnaire was pre-tested for its understanding on a smaller sample; a multistep process was used to translate and adapt the questionnaire into English language. It was structured into six sections. The first section enquires into the main socio-economic characteristics of the player. The second set of questions is related to the main motive for travelling. The third inquires about the financial spending per person. The fourth is concentrated on the importance of different reasons that led the player choose the course. The fifth set of questions is centred on the influence of determinants that led the player choose Slovenia as his/her golf destination, while the sixth set deals with the impressions of his/her golfing experience in Slovenia, where the same determinants were analysed as in the previous set of questions. Ritchie, Tung, & Ritchie (2011) analysed the existing literature on tourism experience and found out that 'experience-related research remains under-represented in the tourism literature.' The adopted questionnaire used a set of variables most quoted on literature (Iso-Ahola and Man-nel, 1987; Lundberg, 1990; Fodness, 1994; Petrick, 2002; Holden, 2003; Mohsin & Ryan, 2003; Correia, Barros, & Silvestre, 2007; Fjelstul & Tesone, 2008).
The measurement of the answers was made with a five-step Likert scale, in which '1' means not important at all and '5' means very important. Expectations and impressions of the lived experience inside the questionnaire involved the same determinants. In this way, it was possible to analyse the gap between the expectations and the effective experience.
For better understanding of golfers' expectations and the experience they received in Slovenia, we used a hierarchical clusteranalysiswithWard's(1963)method for sorting the groups, in which groups are clustered using Euclidean distance as the distance metric. This methodology has been proved to be the most reliable method for forming clusters in similar applications (McNeill & Wang, 2005; Fraley & Raftery, 2002; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2005; Malhotra & Birks, 2006, Gibson & Pennington-Gray, 2008) to group individuals based on their revealed outcome priorities or preferences. To define the number of clusters, we charted a hierarchical dendrogram and a Scree diagram, from which it was possible to select the appropriate number
Table 1 Demography of Interviewees
Origin				A	ge groups				Total
		<25	26-35	36-45	46-55	56-65	>66	Didn't say	
Foreign	n	3	24	77	67	57	9	14	251
	%	1.2	9.6	30.7	26.7	22.7	3-6	5.6	100
Slovenian	n	50	105	132	217	117	21	7	649
	%	7-7	16.2	20.3	33-4	18.0	3-2	1.1	100
Total	n	53	129	209	284	174	30	21	900
	%	5.9	14.3	23.2	31.6	19.3	3.3	2.3	100
of clusters; in our case we decided that four is the appropriate number. The analysis of variance (anova) was used to explore the differences between clusters, which revealed that the four clusters were statistically different from each other in terms of golfing attitudes, and Eta-squared (n2) was used to indicate the effect size. Eta-squared represents the percentage of variance in the outcome measure that is explained by group designation, with values less than 0.10 considered to be weak. To test the usefulness of the cluster solution, we performed significance tests comparing the clusters on variables that were not used to generate the cluster solution.
Clusters were constructed around seven reasons comprising the ways of choosing the golf course: interesting course; restaurants and bars near the course; well-groomed course; friendly staff; green fee amount; good name/image of the course; well-known course.
Results and Main Findings
Four identified clusters fulfil the basic idea of clustering, i.e. to form groups of similar variables so that the classification objects are homogeneous within groups/ clusters and heterogeneous between clusters, and they are substantively interpretable. Internal validity has been tested, and it has been found that the classification fits to the data and that it is possible to explain the variation in the data. External validity has been also proven as the four clusters correlate with external variables that are known to be correlated with the classification and that are not used for clustering. The identified clusters were named according to the recognised characteristics: relaxing travellers, spenders, business
people and only golfers (Table 1). Respondents were asked to evaluate the reasons for choosing Slovenia for their golf activity and to evaluate the impressions of Slovenian experience. The same dimensions were analysed for choosing Slovenia and as determinants of impressions (Table 2).
Relaxing Travellers (33.7 Percent) Most relaxing travellers play golf a few times per month or more often if they get the possibility. For 71.2% of them, golf is the main activity in Slovenia; their spending is eur 95.45 per day. Relaxing travellers mentioned sport as the main motive for travelling, and the next one rest and relaxation (25.4 percent). They differ from other groups in the extent of sightseeing attractions in the country they visit. The most important factor for all groups regarding the golf course is the good state of course, well groomed and maintained. Relaxing travellers seek an interesting course, and they appreciate friendly staff on and off the course. The reputation of the course is of middle importance for them.
Relaxing travellers are interested in natural qualities of Slovenia, the local population's hospitality and, like all other groups, in personal safety during their stay in Slovenia. They were extremely impressed with the natural beauties of Slovenia, Slovene's hospitality and their feelings of personal safety. The country's manageable size is of relative importance for them.
Spenders (28.2 Percent)
The second group are demanding golfers and gourmands; they expressed the highest satisfaction. The
Table 2 Clusters of Golf Players on Slovenian Golf Courses
Habits and factors	Relaxing travelers	Spenders	Businessmen	Only golfers
Playing golf...				
... few times per week	40.2 %	58.1 %	42.7 %	42.9 %
... few times per months	46.5 %	30.0 %	45.5 %	41.1 %
... few times per year	1.8 %	3.1 %	2.1 %	3.7 %
... don't know	11.4 %	8.8 %	9.8 %	12.3 %
Golf is the main activity in Slovenia	71.2 %	76.9 %	64.3 %	85.1 %
Spending per visit per person (in Euros)	95-45	161.79	66.44	111.08
The main motive of travelling				
Rest and relax	25.4%	12.0 %	17.9%	8.3 %
Visiting attractions	6.8 %	5.4%	3.6 %	2.1 %
Sport	40.7 %	53.3 %	39.3 %	56.3 %
VRF	6.8 %	6.5 %	10.7 %	0.0 %
Business	5.1 %	0.0 %	10.7 %	4.2 %
Educations	0.0 %	1.1 %	0.0 %	0.0 %
Pilgrimage	0.0 %	0.0 %	3.6 %	0.0 %
Trip without overnight stay	1.7%	3.3 %	0.0 %	0.0 %
Other	5.1 %	8.7 %	3.6 %	0.0 %
Golf	8.5 %	9.8 %	10.7 %	29.2 %
Reasons for choosing a golfcourse				
Interesting course	4.46	4.85	4.10	4.28
Restaurants and bars near the course	4.03	4.52	3.13	3.39
Well-groomed course	4.66	4.95	4.22	4.29
Friendly staff	4.55	4.85	3.93	4.24
Green fee amount	3.98	4.50	3.43	3.86
Good name/image of the course	3.26	4.66	2.31	3.99
Well-known course	3.03	4.38	2.22	4.08
good will (reputation, image) of the golf course is a very important factor for this group. Demanding golfers are willing to pay more merely to access the best-groomed golf course; if it fulfils their demands and expectations, they will be returning to the same place and spreading word of mouth about the good play at this golf course. Spenders are the most frequent golf players; 58.1% of them play it several times per week. Golf is the main activity in Slovenia for three quarters of them, and they are also big spenders. On average, they spend eur 161.79 per day. Sport is the most prominent motive for half of them; some
have modest interest for rest and relaxation, and visiting attractions, but with no interest in business. For this group, almost all the indicators have exceptionally high average scores (well over the mark of 4), but the most important are well-groomed courses, interesting courses, friendly staff, and personal safety.
People's hospitality and the natural beauties of the country are the highest scored reasons for choosing Slovenia, followed by local cuisine and affordable overnight accommodation. This group's expectations about local food were fulfilled; they very much like to have organised activities for tourists; they do not like
Table 3 Clusters of Golfers by Reasons for Choosing Slovenia and Country Impressions
Determinants of evaluation
Relaxing travelers
Spenders Businessmen Only golfers
Reasons for choosing Slovenia Organized activities for tourists Natural qualities Spa offerings
Attractive villages and interesting rural life Old towns, castles, churches Local cuisine
The native population's hospitality Affordable overnight stays The country's manageable size Mountain environment
Unspoiled natural beauty and protection of the natural environment
Personal safety during my stay
Closeness to home
З.75 4.38 З.65 3.80 З.79 4.09
4.20 З.72
З.4З З.25
4.15
4.42 З.45
4.04 4.51
З.96
З.95 З.89
4.З6
4.56 4.16
З.59 З.78 4.19
4.64
3.57
З.41 З.89 2.8З З.19 З.46 З.96 4.11 З.З6 2.77 З.2 З.79
4.З2 З.26
З.72 4.2З
3.62 З.74 З.8З З.87 4.1З З.77
3.63 З.72 4.19
4.26 З.85
Impressions of Slovenia
Organized activities for tourists Natural qualities Spa offerings
Attractive villages and interesting rural life Old towns, castles, churches Local cuisine
The native population's hospitality Affordable overnight stays The country's manageable size Mountain environment
Unspoiled natural beauty and protection of the natural environment Personal safety during my stay Closeness to home
4.02 4.З5 4.00 З.98
3.79 З.89 4.11
3.91
3.80 З.78 З.98
4.ЗЗ
3.92
4.29 4.48 4.08 4.06 4.09 4.25 4.ЗЗ 4.08 4.12 4.09 4.18
4.46 З.99
З.92 4.19 З.76 4.04 З.67 З.56 4.19 З.61 4.00 З.65 4.00
4.2З 4.08
4.02 4.З0 З.95 З.87 4.04 З.91 4.26 З.87 З.95 З.9З 4.16
4.З9 4.09
to travel on their own, and they do not want to travel much; they prefer close-distance trips.
Business People (17.8 Percent)
Business people are an extremely significant group. They play golf only a couple of times per month, sometimes more. Golf is not the main activity for them in Slovenia (one third); they are unusually restrictive
with their budget, spending eur 66.44 per day. Sport and relaxation are the strongest motives, followed by visiting friends or relatives and business activities. Local cuisine and the manageable size of the country are also highly scored by them. Visiting attractions is not one of their stronger motives for travelling. Well-groomed and engaging courses are essential, while the image and reputation of the course is not important at
all. They do not care much about restaurants and bars near the course. The personal safety and hospitality of the local population are important reasons for coming to Slovenia. Personal safety, hospitality, natural beauties, attractive villages and attractive rural life left the best impressions on business people, but they do not take much time to enjoy such things.
Only Golfers (20.3 Percent)
For fanatical golfers, the most important part of their visit in Slovenia is golf. Equal amounts of these respondents play golf several times per week and several times per month. A well-known course is an important factor to them; 85% stated golf as their main activity in Slovenia. Spending per person is eur 111.08 per day. This group's main motive for travelling is sport (56.3%) and golf (29.2%). They do not visit friends or relatives; only a small number of them does business while travelling, and they scarcely visit other attractions. A well-groomed course, friendly staff, hospitality, an interesting course and a well-known course are very important for this group; restaurants and bars near the course are slightly less important.
Personal safety and natural beauties were among the most influential reasons for them to choose Slovenia as a golf destination; they really like the unspoiled natural beauty and the protection of the natural environment. They pay less attention to the organised activities for tourists. Personal safety and Slovenia's attractiveness convinced most of the only golfers, while the hospitality of the native population surpasses the expectations of the group.
The Consumption of Golfers
Brown, Rascher, McEvoy, & Nagel (2006) made an compelling study and determined that golfers treat travel costs as bundled costs, especially those classified as tourists. The strong, positive correlation found between distances travelled and the cost of green fees enables managers to utilise geographic segmentation in choosing to whom to market their course based upon their product's process compared to area competitors. We were interested in the level of consumption of a golfer per visit. The average consumption per
Table 4 The Average Consumption of Golfers per Visit
Group	Euros
Foreign golfers	127.95
Domestic golfers	89.08
All	98.75
visit of golfers in Slovenia has been 98.75 euros; foreign tourists spent more (eur 127.95) than domestic ones on average (Table 4).
Discussion
Relatively little is known about the determinants of, and the best way to measure a golf traveller's satisfaction (Petrick & Backman, 2002a) and his/her intention to revisit the same golf destination. Nevertheless, it is quite likely that a golfer as tourist will not come back to a tourism destination where his/her satisfaction with golf courses was not sufficiently high, and the expectations were not satisfied. It is becoming increasingly vital for destination managers to identify the variables that attract and retain their current and potential clientele (Petrick, 2002). At the same time, it is essential to know the demand side of tourism, i.e. golfers and their socio-economic background; Shaw and Alderson (1995) have found that over the previous 20 years there have been a number of changes in the market for golf. The same researchers also found that golf has traditionally been played by males, but nowadays the numbers of women taking up the game are increasing rapidly. The demand for golf is roughly represented by two groups of golfer: tourists and residents, usually members of the golf club. One market that has been shown to be viable is the travelling golfer (Petrick, 2002). Thus, it has become more urgent than ever for golf destination managers to identify the factors related to golf travellers' repurchase intentions. Since Doupona (2002) determined that women play a dominant role in the formation of sports life of a family, it can be concluded that for the golf tourism market the increasing participation of women in golf is extremely valuable and welcome information. Furthermore, women are much more active in the planning and organising of trips (Holloway & Robinson, 2000), so destination managers should take this information
into consideration when preparing their marketing tools. However, not only socio-demographic characteristics are essential; even more valuable is knowledge of the golf habits of tourists. The results of Brey and Lehto (2007) support the hypothesis that the more that individuals are involved in an activity in a daily setting, the more they tend to participate in the same activity while on vacation. Their results show that golfers are extremely loyal to the activity while travelling; in contrast, bicycling may not be a typical loyalty-based activity.
However, it can also be seen from the results that a golfer on vacation is not necessarily a frequent golf player in their his/her everyday life. The 'Spenders' are the group that most commonly play golf a couple of times per week; in contrast, golf is the main activity in Slovenia and the main motive of travel for the 'Only golfers.' It can be said that 'Only golfers' are typical golf tourists who are interested in a well-groomed and engaging golf course, but in Slovenia this group of golfers is the smallest one. Thus, while there are golfers in Slovenia, they are not particularly typical golf tourists who are traveling to experience different golf destinations. Our data has revealed that in Slovenia the biggest group of golfers is 'Relaxing travellers' whose main motive for travel is sport, rest and relaxation, but golf is the motive only for 8.5% of them. In contrast, golf is the main motive for visiting Slovenia for ca. 70% of 'Relaxing travellers.' The main reasons for choosing Slovenia as a tourism destination were personal safety and natural qualities. To further develop Slovenia as a golf destination, tourists with golf as the main motive of travel should be attracted. The results show that Slovenia has occasional golf travellers or travellers to Slovenia with other motives, but they also play golf, once they are here. Correia, Barros, & Silvestre (2007) found the motives that lead golf players to repeat the same golf destination are mainly the climate and the quality of the courses, but interestingly they found 'safety' as an insignificant factor for repeating tourists. Our results show 'safety' as the highest evaluating factor for choosing Slovenia in all groups, but 'well-groomed course' as a factor for choosing the golf course was given the lowest mark between 'Business people' and 'Only golfers,' i.e. those who are most
similar the typical golf tourists. These findings prove that Slovenia is not a typical golf destination with typical golf tourists.
For 'Business people,' 'business' as the main motive of travel is as strong as the motive of 'play golf,' and an important reason for choosing Slovenia is 'safety' and 'population's hospitality.' This means they choose Slovenia for business, because of its safety and the locals' hospitality, but once they come to Slovenia for business, they discovered that Slovenia is also a good place for golf. If their satisfaction with the golf courses is high, there is a chance they will come back as golf tourists. We hypothesised that foreign golfers do not come in Slovenia specifically for a golf holiday, so we asked them about their impressions of Slovenia. Cor-reia et al. (2007) conclude that intentions to return to play golf have more to do with the destination's attributes rather than a golf course's attributes. Moreover, it has been found that attributes related to the resort experience had more influence on overall satisfaction than attributes related to the information provided and golfing experiences (Petrick & Backman, 2002a) and that golf travellers' satisfaction is highly correlated with repurchase intentions (Petrick & Back-man, 2002b). We found that determinants about the impressions of Slovenia were estimated relatively high. Several researchers have contended that an individual's past experiences can mediate their present everyday behaviour (Ouellette & Wood, 1998) and leisure behaviour (Williams, Schreyer, & Knopf, 1990; Op-permann, 2000), so the golfers in Slovenia (domestic and foreign) have a high potential to repeat their golf visit on the Slovenian golf courses. More problematic is that golfers on the Slovene golf courses are not typical golfers; we could name call them as 'by-the-way golfers.'
We have discovered intriguing results while testing the impressions of Slovenia as the groups evaluated them differently. 'Relaxing travellers' lowest evaluated experiences are 'mountain environment' and 'old towns, castles, churches,' but 'Spenders' marked the 'Closeness to home' as the most lowly evaluated factor. This result could be interpreted in two ways: Slovenia is too distant to return to for playing golf or that, while the impression of Slovenia is so good, it is
unfortunately too distant to visit. We can say that the second explanation of the interpretation is likely the closest to reality due to the evaluation of all the other tested determinants; the average evaluation was higher than 4 (5 is the maximum evaluation) in the group of 'Spenders.'
The lowest evaluated impression in the group of 'Business people' goes to 'Local cuisine' which is particularly a matter of concern because 'Local cuisine' as had been well evaluated (3.96) as a reason for choosing Slovenia, but later was evaluated lower (3.56). That means that the expectations of 'Business people' about the local cuisine were higher than the actual experience; this group of golfers will certainly not return to Slovenia because of the food.
The smallest group, 'Only golfers,' evaluated 'Natural qualities' as a very important factor when choosing this destination (4.23). The same factor has been better (4.3) evaluated than the experience. We could conclude that the least numbered group of golfers represents potential golfers as returning Slovenian tourists.
Correia et al. (2006) report that only about 25% of golf spending is actually realised at the golf course. If golf tourists in Slovenia would be typical golf tourists and if we take into account that 25°% of spending is on golf, at least eur 95 per day would be the spending of the typical golf tourist in Slovenia. As the foreign tourists spend even more (eur 127.95), we can conclude that Slovenia certainly needs to consider further strategies to develop golf tourism and promote Slovenia as a sport tourism destination with an emphasis on golf tourism. However, future research about the golf tourism income in Slovenia needs to be done.
Conclusion
Five core elements are considered to be vital for the development of a sport tourism destination (Walms-ley, 2008): access, climate, prestige, diversity and authenticity. Slovenia can offer easy access as it is positioned centrally to most European countries; road connections are excellent, but there is a lack of regular flights to the main airport. The climate is exceptionally favourable; golf can be played throughout the year on the coast. A prestigious image is difficult to obtain and even more difficult to evaluate, but Slovenia
is not an inexpensive destination. It can offer exceptional diversity, from Alpine beauties and the primal Karst to the mild Mediterranean climate, and tourists can be extremely satisfied with the easy access to these sites within a mere 100 kilometres. All these elements have to be incorporated in the destination development strategy, using innovative approaches. Križaj et al. (2012) developed a tool for the measurement of innovation newness and adoption in tourism, which can be used for determining the effects of introducing innovations in developing the golf destination.
From the research and literature review, we demonstrated that the chosen segment is growing, and thus conclude that the decision to present the country as a golf destination could be highly favourable. The sport tourism strategy can be combined with other differentiation points of the country (Faganel, 2011a). Once the target segment has been identified, the positioning of the country as a golf destination has to be planned and delivered. The product and accompanying services are already there: they have to be improved and differentiated. The combination of excellent golf courses with tourism services, alongside natural beauties, fine cuisine and the sustainable development of the environment are the main advantages of Slovenia as a golf destination. Okumus, Okumus, & McKercher (2007) emphasise the importance of differentiating tourism destinations through the use of their unique cuisines. Despite the current economic crisis, we strongly believe that sustainability is the right way forward for golf tourism. Faganel (2011b, p. 152) asserts that during a financial crisis and recession, consumers' behaviour differs and leads to risk aversion and market anomalies. The number of golfers has to be regulated by offering off-peak discounts, avoiding seasonality, transferring tourists to different, less populated courses and other attractive places, taking care of biodiversity, emissions, waste management etc. The pricing strategy has to be developed carefully; the policy of ongoing discounting is not a viable replacement for a proper price strategy. Regarding the place, decision makers have to think not only of better golf courses, but must take in consideration the fact that tourists and golfers evaluate the whole package of services and product, as well as the promotion of course, which is the most powerful mar-
keting element for brand building. Global tv channels (cnn, the Travel Channel), specialised printed media, attractive and updated websites are only message carriers. An effective communication strategy has to be designed, one that integrates every contact with different sectors of the public. Finally, that the best and cheapest advertising comes from the word-of-mouth communication must be remembered. A satisfied golfer will bring more golfers to the destination through personal communication and/or social media interactions. This is the reason and confirmation that the strategy planning has to start with surveying customers. Of course, existing visitors/golfers are only one segment; there are numerous other potential customers to be analysed.
As for the other marketing mix elements, such as people, processing and physical evidences, let us briefly mention people. Two categories are important: customers and service performers. Employees, tourism staff, managers are friendly (traditional Slavic hospitality), knowledgeable in languages, but they ought to develop their hospitality skills, as cultural differences play a significant role in perceiving the quality of delivered services. Customers are the existing and potential golfers as well as other tourists who might try to take up the challenge of learning golf on vacations, so distinct and differentiated strategies have to be implemented for singular categories.
Yoo, Lee, and Bai (2011) conducted a ten-year hospitality marketing research and forecast that consumer behaviour, customer relationship management, market segmentation, targeting, positioning, and branding subjects will consistently receive attention for further research. Knowing the needs and wants of potential tourists, and understanding the perceived image of golf destination is of the outmost importance for the marketing communication of golfing destination. The financial crisis will probably leave certain consequences on social and situational contexts for golfers; the number of female golfers is slowly increasing; the stereotype of golf as senior and wealthy people's play is disappearing, as is its perception as being an upper class sport etc. Brooker, Joppe, Davidson, and Marles (2012) argue that innovations within outdoor hospitality should be introduced in three- to four-year incre-
ments, providing enough time for the assessment of the market's reaction to the changes, and the experienced increased value.
Having in mind all these changes and the sensed paradigm shift, tourism stakeholders have to plan the viability of destination development for decades ahead. As the number of golf courses increases, golfers will be seeking for unique experiences. Slovenia has truly enormous potential to develop a sustainable golf destination as the country can offer natural and cultural beauties, unspoiled woods, virgin clear waters, excellent cuisine and wines, historical sites etc. Sustainable development with the protection of natural, cultural, social and environmental integrity is needed in order to present memorable experiences for tourists and to realise the expected economic goals. Yasarata, Altinay, Burns, and Okumus (2010) state the importance of understanding the society's political system and power structure, in order to understand the sustainable tourism policy development, planning and implementation. When designing the destination strategy, all the activities must be planned and coordinated in order to pursue the chosen vision. Well-designed and groomed golf courses will not significantly change the perception of tourist golfers. All the accompanying infrastructure and services, from the airport connections, free-time activities, organised trips and culinary events must be taken into account. Moreover, it would be extremely beneficial to organise at least one prominent competitive event of the highest rank per year, as it would boost tourists' awareness of potential tourist and place the golfing destination. Understanding the golfers' segments and managing their expectations could be of valuable help for local politicians, sport managers and tourism stakeholders, willing to turn the country into a well-known golf destination.
Regarding possible future research, we could recommend more deeply assessing differences among domestic and foreign golfers' attitudes; discovering the role of women's rising participation in choosing golf destinations; better understanding what attracts Chinese and Russian noveau riche to golf destinations; analysing the causes that motivate golfers to travel longer distances to play golf, analysing sustainable and
environmental issues of golf tourism etc. Another important issue, which could not be addressed in this paper due to the given data, is that domestic golfers should be divided into two groups: (1) local or one-day players and (2) domestic tourists. The problem is in the basic definition of the 'tourist' so we could not say if members of the first group could be defined as tourists at all. As Janeš and Faganel (2013) also suggest, a quantitative approach in research is useful in combination with a qualitative approach, which is a common practice in determining the causal relations, so further studies might combine different research methods to get a better insight into golfers' motivations.
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Communicating Sustainability-Led Innovation in Tourism: Challenges and Potentials
Aleksandra Brezovec
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica, Slovenia aleksandra.brezovec@turistica.si
This paper deals with the challenges and potentials of building knowledge of sustainability-led innovation in tourism. Sustainability-led innovation is becoming essential to many sectors, including tourism. It is defined as the creation of new markets, products, services or processes driven by social, ethical and environmental issues. The tourism sector holds considerable amounts of knowledge about the ecological and social impacts of tourism, yet this knowledge is rarely communicated more broadly to society, or with the aim of designing not only sustainable tourism but also a sustainable society. In order for sustainability ideas and practices to transform tourist behaviour and the tourism sector as a whole, a deeper and broader communication movement is proposed in this study. A cross-sector literature review is used to elicit the main challenges posed by sustainability-led innovation for tourism, and to propose effective forms of communication about sustainable innovation in tourism. Forms of corporate social responsibility (csr) communication are discussed, through which participants may directly experience familiar themes of sustainability in tourism.
Keywords: Sustainability-led innovation; tourism; csr Communication
Introduction
Over the previous decade, the tourism sector has been undergoing significant changes and facing new challenges that call for new perspectives (Stamboulis & Skayannis, 2003; Moscardo, 2008; Muqbil, 2008; Pleu-marom, 2009; Tribe, 2009; Pritchard, Morgan, & Atel-jevic, 2011; Križaj &Zakonjšek, 2011). Although, tourism is one of the 'world's biggest money spinner[s]' (Pleumarom, 2009), it has also become a 'runaway phenomenon, ill-managed and barely controlled' (Tribe, 2009, p. 3) 'The travel and tourism industry is caught in an unprecedented cycle of boom and bust. It is being affected by too much happening too quickly in too many different sectors and parts of the world. The need for new ideas, from new people for a new era has never been more important' (Muqbil, 2008). Authors clearly argue for more rational development
in the tourism industry and call for input from new voices.
In sustainability studies in different sectors, scholars are eagerly seeking new conceptualisations and models the integrate the earth system, human development and sustainability (Fletcher & Grose, 2011; Bell & Morse, 2008; Guy & Moore, 2005; Clark & Dickson, 2003). Sustainability-led innovation is becoming a critical dimension of strategies for achieving sustainable consumption and production. It is defined as the creation of new markets, products or services and processes, driven by social, ethical and environmental (sustainable) issues (Little, 2004; Charter & Clark, 2007). Sustainability-led innovation has been recognised as necessary since the sustainable development debate emerged in the 1980s and was reinforced since 1990s by the United Nations and the European Com-
mission. However it has remained mainly peripheral in tourism studies (Hjalager, 1996; Carlsen, Libur, Edwards, & Forde, 2008).
In this paper, corporate social responsibility (csr) communication is outlined as a key concept for building knowledge on sustainability-led innovation. Our main assumption is that csr communication, when dealing with tourists as active citizens and not only as consumers, provides tools, examples, skills and language to amplify a collective voice, so that deep change can come to the sector. New forms of communicating sustainability-led innovation are discussed in order for sustainability ideas and practices to more rapidly transform tourist behaviour and tourism sector towards sustainability.
Research Design
The cross-sector literature review is used as a tool for eliciting challenges, potentials and forms of communicating sustainability-led innovation in tourism. The literature review was designed to address the following research questions on sustainability-led innovation: How is sustainability-led innovation defined and conceptualised? What are traditional and emerging drivers of sustainable innovation? How is sustainability-led innovation communicated and with what effect? These questions were elaborated in the protocols that guided the review. The review was focused on three sectors: tourism, fashion and design. Papers from international conferences on sustainable innovation (Sustainable Innovation, annually organised by the Centre for Sustainable Design, University College for the Creative Arts, Surrey, United Kingdom), as well as international case studies on innovation for sustainability in tourism and the fashion industry were identified and examined for detailed analysis. To ensure that the focus of the literature review is clear, we define the terms used in the research questions through general literature on sustainable innovation and csr communication.
Sustainability-Led Innovation: Definitions and Concepts
Sustainability-led innovation is a process in which sustainability considerations (environmental, social, eth-
ical) are integrated into company systems from idea generation through research and development to commercialisation (Little, 2004). This applies to products, services and technologies, as well as new businesses, organisation models and systems at the societal level (Charter & Clark, 2007). An alternative term is 'eco-innovation.' It is described as 'the process of developing new products, processes or services which provide customer and business value but significantly decrease environmental impact' (James, 1997), or more precisely as 'the creation of novel and competitively priced goods, processes, systems, services, and procedures designed to satisfy human needs and provide a better quality of life for all, with a life-cycle minimal use of natural resources per unit output' (Europa innova Thematic Workshop). Although the two terms maybe used interchangeably, eco-innovation addresses only environmental dimensions while sustainability-led innovation also embraces the broader social and ethical dimensions.
Charter and Clark (2007) enumerate a spectrum of levels of sustainability-led innovation, from incremental to radical:
•	Level 1 (incremental): small, progressive improvements to existing product/services.
•	Level 2 (re-design to 'green limits'): major redesign of existing products/services.
•	Level 3 (alternative): new product/service to satisfy the same functional need.
•	Level 4 (radical, systems): new product/service design for a sustainable society.
Most innovations are incremental, re-design, or niche market offerings. Few companies have started to incorporate sustainability into the core creativity phase of new product/service and business development processes (Charter and Clark, 2007).
The current paradigm of sustainability in tourism is also focused on environmental aspects and on incremental or green re-design rather than more radical levels of innovation. The primary focus of this study is on higher levels of sustainable innovation, which may contribute to significant impacts in sustainable tourism development.
Various papers (Little, 2004; Charter & Tischner,
2001; Fletcher & Grose, 2011) illustrate how new concepts and techniques maybe applied to fostering sustainable innovation at a system level. Fletcher and Grose (2011) advocate the sustainable transformation of the fashion system through following set of innovation opportunities: adaptability, trans-seasonality, empathy, low-impact use, speed, needs, local, sharing and engaging. Perhaps not all elements are applicable to the tourism sector, but their relevance is worth testing in the field of tourism innovation at a system level.
Sustainable innovation at a system level is only likely to occur if there are strong triggers and drivers to overcome powerful inertia and other obstacles in existing economic, social and other systems. Charter and Clark (2007) have highlighted existing and emerging drivers for sustainably led innovation at the system level, valid for all sectors, including tourism. These are:
•	Key environmental and resource risks (such as pollution, increasing consumption of energy, climate change, water shortages).
•	Product environmental legislation (such as promoting tools to reduce lifecycle impacts).
•	Market drivers (such as a good brand trend, green mainstream, social responsible investment).
•	Sustainable consumption (such as promoting sustainable lifestyles, sustainable public procurement).
While environmental risks, legislation and market are continuing drivers of sustainable innovation in all sectors, sustainable consumption policy is still a relatively new and emerging area in sustainable innovation management. At a system level, approaches to understanding and achieving sustainable consumption are of fundamental importance.
Innovation for Sustainable Consumption: Towards Clearer Goals
Environmental philosopher Kate Rawles acknowledged difficulties in changing dominant thinking and behaving, since people 'cling to the status quo' (Rawles, 2009, p. 40). 'In our society there is a perceived right to consume, and the 'customer is king' is still the key driver for many companies,' stated Charter and Clark
(2007, p. 33). Various authors call for systems changes, clearer goals and long term education for sustainable consumption. To move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption, whole systems and business models have to be transformed.
Environmental and social problems have no purely technical or market-based solutions, rather their solutions are moral and ethical, and require the whole sector to look at what shapes, directs and motivates the bigger system. Fletcher and Grose who work on fostering and cultivating sustainability benefits in the fashion industry, argue that most goals, rules and mindsets of business models remain unacknowledged and unquestioned in the principal industry cycles. Arguing that, they quote industrial ecologist John R. Ehrenfeld, who suggests: 'Discipline yourself to live inside the questions..., then you will slowly be able to discard the old tried, but no longer true, answers and replace them with new, effective ways of building a sustainable future' (Fletcher & Grose, 2011, p. 75).
For building a sustainable system, being is essential from both sides - producers and consumers. Still, many consumers are passive rather than active as they perceive themselves to be on the 'receiving end' of the industry's cycle. Marchand and Walker's research (Fletcher & Grose, 2011, p. 139) on what motivates people to downshift to simpler, non-consumerist lifestyles provides some valuable insights into people's behaviour around sustainability. They note that presenting the problems in the world simply as a set of abstract concepts that are 'out there' (e.g. pollution) and 'somewhere else' (e.g. child labour or prostitution) means that people understand them only intellectually; this is why they can easily set them aside as consumers.
Much of the literature examining consumers' responsible behaviour suggests that the more information consumers have, the more responsible their actions will be (Neagu 2011). People working in companies, and specifically in research and development (r&d) or corporate social responsibility (csr) departments, hold considerably more knowledge about the ecological and social impacts of production and consumption than consumers. 'Yet rarely is this knowledge communicated beyond the confines of the tech-
nical functions on the supply chain to society more broadly' (Fletcher & Grose, 2011, p. 157). In particular, corporate (csr) and marketing communications have potentially pivotal roles in fostering sustainability-led innovation (Charter & Clark, 2007). Although the csr and marketing communication roles in the innovation process differ from company to company and also from sector to sector, generally there is a weak interaction between marketing and csr professionals. New patterns of consumer behaviour and opportunities that producers are already exploring show that experts in creating, producing and marketing are on their way to finding new modes of operating - as communicators, educators and even activists.
Over the previous decade, the practice of co-creation in designing products with users rather than for users has been on the rise. 'Co-creation platforms' (Chesbrough, 2012, p. 16) are now new spaces where consumers and producers (development staff) come together to create new solutions. Their face-to-face interaction and communication is a powerful way to stimulate sustainability-led innovation. As producers themselves are becoming new agents of sustainable consumption change, the first thing to be implemented in sustainable consumption policies should be their broader and effective way of communicating sustainability-led innovation.
CSR Communication: Communicating with Customers as Active Citizens
Studies show that what is communicated by companies about sustainable innovation is usually shaped by an organisation's image, corporate culture and reputation. Issues in sustainability-led innovation are mostly communicated as brand differentiation. Marketing communications that reduce sustainability-led innovation to simple slogans on existing or green redesigned products have limited environmental or social qualities but reflect clear intentions of leading to increased sales and market shares. 'Today, all companies speak to their customers as consumers; barely any also speak to them as active citizens' claim Fletcher and Grose (2011, p. 157).
Companies usually do not give their customers the occasion to ask questions and build knowledge about,
for example, an ecosystem's carrying capacity, resource efficiency or improved workers' rights. Therefore, sustainability and corporate social responsibility philosophies encourages businesses to use their communications, expertise and other resources to improve society, not only their companies and industries (Coombs & Holladay, 2010). Silence or a lack of response to the troubles of the world, or refusal to acknowledge that products are somehow implicated in the production of troubles of the others, is critically described by Dunne, Harney and Parker (2008) as irresponsible corporate communication. 'Speaking out is the core of responsibility, whether in terms of its "corporate social" variety [...] the enactments of the world social forums, or everyday senses of obligation and care,' claim the authors (Dunne et al., 2008, p. 275). 'Speaking out' is becoming central to building knowledge in the general population around natural systems and their interconnections with human systems.
In contrast, the literature on corporate social responsibility still relegates communication a role on the periphery (Ihlen, Berttlet, & May, 2011, p. 10). While there is vast literature on corporate social responsibility (csr), the literature on csr communication is disproportionally small. Recently turning to the communication theory, work on csr communication has been published within fields such as public relations (Golob & Barttlet, 2007), corporate communications (Nielsen & Thomsen, 2007) and marketing communications (Podnar, 2008). Authors from the communication disciplines claim csr communications in different sectors need to be dealt with authentically and by developing engaged and ongoing relationships rather than through one-way communication. 'Thinking holistically about the company's corporate citizenship, understanding what stage of development the company is in, fully articulating and implementing the company's value throughout the company's value chain are necessary components of the effective csr communications strategy' (Ihlen et al., 2011, p. 41).
Based on Grunig and Hunt's (1984) characterisation of models of public relations, Morsing and Schultz (2006) unfold three types of relations in terms of how companies strategically manage csr communication: information strategy, response strategy and involve-
ment strategy. Their findings show people understand that csr is of high importance to companies, while at the same time they have mixed opinions about how companies should communicate their csr efforts: whether through public relations and advertising, through more subtle ways of csr communications, or not communicating on csr issues at all. Communication about csr is sometimes suspected as serving corporate self-interest only.
Nevertheless, companies cannot not communicate on csr issues. Their communication on sustainabili-ty-led innovation has to create feelings regarding the environmental and ethical issues, and it has to encourage responsible behaviour. The csr communication that triggers responsible behaviour should be cognitive (informative), affective (feeling creation) and conative (action stimulation) (Neagu, 2011).
Studies show that the most effective csr communication does not always manifest itself in traditional forms of communications. Since interactive digital campaigns have replaced most traditional advertising and pr communication, new ways of communicating sustainability-led innovation have emerged. New prototypes of csr communication that have emerged are mostly hands-on workshops, internet competitions and calls to action. The following examples are from the fashion, design and tourism sectors:
1.	The Permacouture Institute, founded by artist and designer Sasha Duerr, organizes dye workshops where participants forage for plants and make dye baths to colour their own fabric yarn. These creative exchange culminate in a dinner arranged around the same plants used as ingredients in the meal, thereby linking together food, fibre and textiles . . . Events are a combination of activity and creativity, and the knowledge gained stays with the individual, opening up minds to the potential of clothing becoming reconnected to natural systems and cycles (Fletcher & Grose, 2011, p. 158).
2.	To nurture and grow sustainable innovation requires a supportive organizational culture with a bias to openness to radical ideas, experimentation, action and learning. Nike developed a cus-
tomer-based project named Considered which has delivered a range of benefits including new thinking, product innovation, as well as indirect production innovation. As a result of the success of Considered, Nike is presently considering how to integrate sustainability into its design process and develop a new system and language around sustainable product design. The designers achieved impressive environmental statistics: a reduction of 61 percent in manufacturing waste, 35 percent in energy consumption and 89 percent in the use of solvents. In addition, Nike employed boutique design firm Hunter Gatherer to create an animated spot for the Nike Considered line utilized in its viral marketing (Charter & Clark, 2007, p. 17).
3. The Ecocean case study is a story of innovation through lateral thinking and making seemingly unrelated connections. Ecocean is an organisation highly motivated to raise awareness, research and work to preserve whale sharks, a rare marine animal. This has been operationalized through building personal, public, non-governmental organisation and government agency support. Lobbying to establish national and international conservation measures for whale sharks has engaged governments. Accessing tourists as whale shark researchers built public support and awareness. The approach also functioned as an efficient cost effective means of collecting information on a global scale. The development of the whale shark online image library was a core component of the success of this approach, enabling tourists encountering whale sharks to contribute their images for research. The image analysis approach was made viable by adapting and applying software originally designed for the Hubble Space Telescope (Carlsen et al., 2008, p. 27).
As all three cases show, these new types of csr communication are designed to disrupt current ways of thinking while developing new ones. The knowledge of sustainability-led innovations is built on experiential, presentational, propositional and practical ways. csr communication seems to be most effec-
tive when grounded in experience, presented through stories and images, understood through theories that make sense to the audience, and expressed in meaningful actions in their lives. Of course, further research is needed to determine and test the potentials of csr communication in tourism to change minds, attitudes and behaviour towards more sustainable society.
Conclusions
This study shows that csr communication has a potential pivotal role for the sustainability-led innovation to trigger systems change. Critical analysis of the findings from the cross-sector literature review suggests that csr communications in different sectors need to be dealt with authentically and by developing engaged and ongoing relationships, rather than through one-way communication. The primary focus of the study was on higher levels of sustainable innovation, which may contribute to significant impacts in sustainable tourism development. With cross-sector review findings, how new concepts and communication techniques could be applied to fostering sustainable innovation at a system level was illustrated. The main assumption of this study was that communication, when dealing with customers as active citizens (csr communication) and not only as consumers (marketing communication), could provide new tools, examples, skills and language to amplify a collective voice, so that deep change can come to the sector. The study has confirmed that the most effective csr communication does not always manifest itself in traditional forms of communications. When knowledge on sustainability-led innovations was built on experiential, presentational, propositional and practical levels, consumers started to recognise their collective position within larger economic, cultural or ecological systems.
Implications of this cross-sectoral 'closed loop' on communication area of sustainability-led innovation are two-fold: (1) Influencing the tourism mainstream maybe one of the greatest challenges for sustainability and one of its greatest potentials; (2) csr communication in tourism can be an effective vehicle for changing minds, attitudes and behaviour of today's mobile cultures.
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Development of Database on Beaches: Case Study
Marinela Krstinić Nižić
The Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management in Opatija, Croatia marikn@fthm. hr Jelena Đurkin
The Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management in Opatija, Croatia jelenad@fthm.hr
Since both contemporary tourists and local communities are interested in the profile and the quality of beaches, the need for a transparent database of information on beaches arose, for both tourists and the local community. The purpose of this paper is to discuss elements for developing a database on beaches as a useful source of information for visitors, as well as local people. After a short review of literature on the subject, the case study method is used to present the best practice example from the management and spatial planning of Croatian beaches. The Croatian Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning, and Construction, in cooperation with the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries of Split and with the Croatian Environment Agency, has developed a database on water quality for swimming, a web application for the entry, processing, and valorisation of data, along with reporting and public information on seawater bathing quality data for the Croatian Adriatic beaches. This paper analyses this database, and the authors suggest a design of the system of parameters appealing for tourists (i.e. capacity of the beach, parking possibilities, sports and other facilities on the beach) and their continuous monitoring and entry into the database. Thus, the necessary security measures, standards of tidiness, supply contents, and standard graphic representation could be formed in order to make beaches recognisable. The main conclusions of the paper relate to the need for the development of a database on beaches and suggest improvements for existing databases in terms of integration with Gis browsers as well as creating a new set of indicators and other data available, with the purpose of market valuation of space, environmental protection, and growth in the quality of tourism demand and supply.
Keywords: database development; innovation; tourism; spatial planning
Introduction
Coastal tourism, still one of the most popular means of tourism, uses beaches, bathing-water characteristics and quality as main resources of attraction. Therefore, beaches are among the most valuable ecosystems used for outdoor recreation worldwide.
'Wild' or urban, beaches play an significant role in tourism, and represent a focal point of significant tourist infrastructure that yields large economic in-
flows for both the private and public sectors. For example, it has been established that for each dollar invested in beach maintenance in the u s a, $600 is returned as taxes paid by national tourism and $20 by foreign tourists (Cervantes & Espejel, 2008). However, due to mass tourism, beaches have become increasingly endangered by negative effects such as erosion, pollution, and landscape loss.
In order to brand high quality and sustainable stan-
dards, various awards gave been established for coastal destinations or beaches that have achieved the highest quality in water, facilities, safety, environmental education and management. Some of those international certifications include the Blue Flag, Blue Wave, National Healthy, Beach Campaign and Seaside Award.
Nevertheless, the issues regarding selecting indicators, collecting beach data and creating transparent and public available databases on beaches remain challenges for researchers, practitioners and decision makers worldwide. A contribution to this effort can be made by identifying and describing the examples of good practice, which has been done in this paper with the case study of Croatia.
Croatia is renowned for its coastal destinations based on beautiful beaches and well-preserved nature and landscapes, as well as the clean Adriatic sea.
The first part of the paper analyses the already existing database on bathing water quality of Croatian beaches, used to enter research result, result processing and evaluation, and to inform the public, which also contains some vital data appealing for tourists: sea-bathing water quality and bathing water profile.
In the second part of the paper, a system of parameters appealing for tourists is proposed (i.e. beach capacity, parking possibilities, detailed description of available catering, sports and other beach facilities and services) and their continuous monitoring and entry into the database. Thus, the necessary security measures, standards of tidiness, supply contents, and visual constants could be formed in order to make beaches recognisable both to local inhabitants and to tourists.
Case Study: Database for Croatian Adriatic Beaches
In cooperation with the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries of Split, at the end of 2006 the Croatian Environment Agency started building a network application for the entry, publication, and management of indicators on the state of the marine environment. Both the database and the indicators on the state of the marine environment, mariculture, and fisheries were established in 2007 and have been continuously maintained through the input of new data from multiple network centres. The data sources are obtained
from the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries of Split, the Ruđer Bošković Institute - Centre for Marine Research of Rovinj, the Institute for Marine and Coastal Research of Dubrovnik, and the Hydrographic Institute of the Republic of Croatia of Split. In 2008, Croatian Waters and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning, and Construction, Department for Sea and Land Protection, also joined the project. (http://jadran.izor.hr/azo/).
The website database and indicators on the state of sea environment, mariculture, and fisheries allows for various options of surveying and researching of a large number of available information; some of the most important highlighted in Table 1.
Some of the main indicators monitored and recorded regularly in the database are the following (http:// jadran.izor.hr/azo):
•	Quality assessment of the ecological status of transitional, coastal, and open sea waters
•	Quality of cultured marine organisms and of sea-water mariculture;
•	Shellfish toxicity;
•	Hot points;
•	Impact of fishing on ecosystems;
•	Impact of mariculture on ecosystems;
•	Biological quality of transitional waters (e.g. macrophytes and macroalgae);
•	Biomarkers;
•	Entry and spread of invasive species;
•	Concentration of chlorophyll in transitional and coastal waters and seawater;
•	Statistics of fisheries;
•	Main fishing areas;
•	Index trend in marine organism biomass;
•	Hazardous substances in marine sediment;
•	Temperature, salinity, and density of water masses;
•	Changes in seawater level;
•	Safety of navigation in the Adriatic.
The stated indicators represent only a part of the overall number of indicators monitored and entered into the database and base of indicators on the state of the marine environment, mariculture, and fisheries.
Table 1 Main Website Options Available on the Database and Indicators on the State of the Marine Environment, Mariculture and Fisheries
Options available to the user	Description
List of indicators	List of active indicators (regularly updated).
Inactive indicators	Indicators with no systematic measurements and testing, or monitored over
a longer period of time.
Research of indicators	Finding desired information on particular indicators is possible by setting
simple requests.
eionet tables	Contain tables with 'row' information on sea conditions, prepared for
reporting purposes in eea (European Environment Agency).
Croatian Environment Agency Geographi- gis browser on the quality of transitional, coastal, and seawaters, fisheries and
cal Information System (gis) Browsers mariculture and gis browser on the quality of sea-bathing water on beaches.
Statistics of database access	Statistics of database access (number of visits to web-page) according to
accessing addresses and according to accessing indicators.
Remarks and suggestions	Enables entry of remarks and suggestions by database users and their review.
Notes Adapted from http://jadran.izor.hr/azo/
The inactive indicators, such impact of mariculture on eco-systems and main fishing areas, which are in preparation, should also be added.
Quality of Seawater on sea Beaches
Within the implementation of Regulations on SeaBathing Water Quality (Uredba o kakvoći mora za kupanje, 2008), the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning, and Construction (mzopug) has in cooperation with the Oceanographic Institute (ior) from Split and the Croatian Environment Agency (azo) also developed a database on sea-bathing water quality, i.e. a network of applications for the entry, elaboration, valorisation of indicators, and reporting of information of public on sea-bathing water quality for Croatian Adriatic beaches. This database represents a part of the previously described database and base of indicators on the state of the marine environment, mariculture, and fisheries. It is used to enter research results, for data processing, for notifying the public, for national reporting on sea-bathing water and reporting to the European Union. Authorised persons use the database to enter monitoring results, for data processing, and for submitting periodical reports to counties and beach concessionaires, i.e. to units of local government. The mzopug uses the database to integrate data and notify the public
through the specifically developed Croatian-English language browser on sea-bathing water quality. The integration of sea-bathing water profiles for all monitoring points of Croatian Adriatic beaches is envisaged via the database by entry of monitored results into specifically designated bws forms and by assessments of pollution risks. The database should be integrated into gis Browsers used in sea-bathing water profiling.
In May 2009, a workshop took place on assessment of microbiological indicators according to the Regulations on Sea-bathing Water Quality and use of program network application / database for the entry, elaboration, and valorisation of information on sea-bathing water quality. The workshop took place in the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries in Split. It was attended by representatives of legal persons (authorised persons/County Department of Public Health) entrusted by counties with monitoring the sea-bathing water quality. The authorised persons from seven county institutes were introduced to the database, its possibilities, method of use, system of data entry, plotting of sampling points, preparing reports, etc. The standard methods provided by the Regulations, i.e. by the Council Directive 76/160/EEC of 8 December 1975 concerning the quality of bathing water (1976) to establish the presence of Escherichie
Table 2 Monitoring Results, Sea-Bathing Water Quality
County	Period		Total	Excellent	Good	Sufficient	Poor
Dubrovnik-Neretva County	09.07.2012-	19.07.2012	106	101 (95.3%)	2 (1.9%)	3 (2.8%)	0 (0.0%)
Split-Dalmatia County	09.07.2012-	16.07.2012	144	136 (94.4%)	3 (2.1%)	5 (3.5%)	0 (0.0%)
Šibenik-Knin County	09.07.2012-	-17.07.2012	92	89 (96.7%)	2 (2.2%)	1 (1.1%)	0 (0.0%)
Zadar County	10.07.2012-	20.07.2012	85	81 (95.3%)	2 (2.4%)	2 (2.4%)	0 (0.0%)
Lika-Senj County	09.07.2012-	-11.07.2012	46	46 (100.0%)	0 (0.0%)	0 (0.0%)	0 (0.0%)
Primorje-Gorski Kotar County	09.07.2012-	19.07.2012	237	234 (98.7%)	1 (0.4%)	2 (0.8%)	0 (0.0%)
Istra County	09.07.2012-	-18.07.2012	202	196 (97.0%)	0 (0.0%)	6 (3.0%)	0 (0.0%)
Total	09.07.2012-	20.07.2012	912	883 (96.8%)	10 (1.1%)	19 (2.1%)	0 (0.0%)
Notes Source: http://www.izor.hr/kakvoca/kakvoca.html
Coli and intestinal enterococci were also presented.
The goals of the sea-bathing water quality monitoring program on beaches are the following:
•	Protection of bathers' health and health education of the public;
•	Management of beaches in order to preserve their natural resources and sustainable use;
•	Identifying pollution sources, prioritisation, monitoring the construction of sewage systems;
•	Monitoring of the operation of existing systems, in cooperation with the competent institutions from different sectors;
•	Reporting on sea-bathing water quality regarding the national needs and the e u requirements;
•	Notifying the public on sea-bathing water quality;
•	Tourism promotion.
Table 2 shows that most counties have positive trend of 'excellent' sea-bathing quality graded (1), or even looking in the total, which shows that 96.8% of Croatian beaches shows excellent quality of seabathing water, while the small remaining number of beaches are classified as having 'good' or 'sufficient' sea-bathing water quality. Most importantly, no Croatian beaches (none shown in the database) are classified as 'poor' and graded (4).
For tourism purposes, i.e. for the purpose of informing the public, a bilingual Internet application was developed, available on website http://www.izor .hr/kakvoca/ and http://www.izor.hr/bathing/, which
is part of the database on sea-bathing water quality and began with operations in May 2009. Through the application, the public can preview all the sampling points, sea-bathing quality grading during the monitoring season after each consequent entry into the database, and information on sudden and short-term pollution.
The application is easy to use, and besides the information on sea bathing quality it also gives a criteria review, i.e. information on other hydro-meteorological conditions on the day of sampling. Because of the substantial public interest, it is planned to translate the application into several additional foreign languages, which would be significant for tourism.
The database on sea-bathing water quality on sea beaches has been developed by e s ri software and allows the usage of common gis tools: minimising/ maximising the map scale, moving over the map, identification of active topic features, finding desired information by user's questions, etc., and contains annual sea-bathing water assessments for sea beaches from 2009 to 2012.
By accessing the gis browser, reviewing sea-bathing water quality via monitoring stations along the entire Croatian coast is enabled. Access is possible via selected assessing points or via an interactive map with indicated measurement locations. Each measurement location contains information on the names of beaches, the counties, and on the latest sea-bathing water monitoring and assessment results. For some beaches, pictures are also available, while others offer an overview of particular facilities and services on
Table 3 Accessing Database for the Period 2003-2011
Year	2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Number of accesses	280 1396 4822 4667 9911 3487 5461 5977 3382
Notes Source: http://jadran.izor.hr/azo/
the beach, such as restaurants, cafe bars, rescue service, sanitary facility, shower, changing rooms, playground, slides, etc. In addition to the stated features, the proximity of hotels, camps, or moorings and ports is also displayed, which is particularly useful for nautical tourists.
Besides the monitoring results for every surveyed beach, the website also shows the available and unified research results, as well as the web page access statistics. The access statistics shows the number of visits to the web application.
Table 3 indicates the number of database visitors, which varies depending on the month. Surprisingly, the database access also grows in winter months, i.e. the off-season period. A possible proposal suggests that the database should be also translated into other foreign languages in addition to English in order to enable foreign tourists as potential database users to become acquainted and informed of available information.
The sea-bathing water profile assessment must be carried out by the county, while the monitoring activities should be performed by a legally authorised person or entity. According to the regulations, the bathing water profile must contain the locations of sampling points, descriptions of the physical, geographical and hydrological characteristics of the bathing water, assessments of bathing water quality, identification and assessment of causes of pollution that might affect bathing waters and impair bathers' health, establishment of the pollution risk level, etc.
Experts participating in meetings on health monitoring within the application of who and unep/map guidelines suggest that a standardised form should be applied by different counties for information on individual assessments of sea-bathing water. The system of profiles in the standardised form should be provided in order for the data from different areas to be measurable and comparable. Maps should be established with
tagged points showing identified and possible pollution sources, classifying sea-bathing water and all assessment results. Use of photographs is also recommended in profile assessment. A sea-bathing water assessment profile is based on primary data (bwp files), data from cartographic representation of the beach, data based on site visits, basic physical and hydrolog-ical properties of seawater quality. Site visits include control of waste water outfalls, fresh water inflow by torrents, rivers and submarine springs, determination of a number of bathers, and seawater circulation, along with additional information. If the presence of waste water outfalls is assessed, the type of treatment (i.e. the outfall efficiency) must be determined. Based on this, the potential waste water risk is assessed. In the assessment of coastal springs, submarine springs, fresh water inflow and torrents inflow, the type of discharged waste water facility must be determined, the size of the settlement from which the waste water originates, and water flow in the sea-bathing season. Based on the above, the assessment of risk caused by the deposition of river waste water is determined. Potential risk caused by a large number of bathers is also determined. Based on all stated risk assessments, the overall risk of sea-bathing water pollution is determined and classified.
As another obligation for counties, the Act on Environmental Protection (Zakon o zaštiti okoliša, 2007) and the Regulation on Seawater Bathing Quality (Uredba o kakvoći mora za kupanje, 2008), the following measures must also be emphasised:
•	Implementation of management measures;
•	Establishment of sea beaches on which bathing water quality monitoring shall be performed;
•	Preparation of a cartographic representation of the county sea beaches;
•	Development of the bathing water profile;
•	Information and notification,
•	Reporting,
•	Securing funds for the implementation of the Bathing Seawater Quality Monitoring Program.
Database Financing, Development Potential, and Good Practice Examples
Funds for bathing-water quality monitoring on beaches, the development of cartographic representations of beaches and development and updating of bathing-water profiles should be secured by the counties. Tourism companies, concessionaries, and local government also participate in the financing of the Bathing Seawater Quality Monitoring Program. In order to increase the number of sampling points and beaches in particular counties (Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning, and Construction, 2009, p. 7), new, interested legal entities should also be involved into the monitoring program.
Bathing-water quality monitoring activities are performed by a legal entity authorised for monitoring activities in the field of environmental protection pursuant to the Environmental Protection Act and to the Act on Waters and according to the county selection. Monitoring activities performed by authorised persons are: sampling, monitoring other sea quality characteristics, laboratory analysis of samples, assessment of results obtained through sampling, preparation of reports and development of the bathing-water profile. Monitoring activities are carried out by county Departments of Public Health in seven coastal counties of the Republic of Croatia.
The bathing season on sea beaches lasts from June 1st until September 15th, unless due to weather conditions and local customs, the representative body of the county issues a decision on the bathing season lasting for a longer period of time. Monitoring of water quality is carried out from May 15th until September 30th. Before the beginning of each bathing season, the county must define the sampling. Prior to the beginning of bathing season, the authorised person must prepare the bathing-water monitoring calendar, subject to the approval of the competent administrative body in the county. Monitoring bathing-water quality must begin at the latest within four days from the day set out in the monitoring schedule (calendar).
Table 4 Overall Number of Sea-Bathing Water Samples for the 2009 Season
County	(1)	(2)
Dubrovnik-Neretva County	95	1
Split-Dalmatia County	142	5
Šibenik-Knin County	90	1
Zadar County	93	0
Lika-Senj County	46	0
Primorje-Gorski Kotar County	236	0
Istra County	203	1
Total	905	8
Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) overall number of samples, (2) number of samples classified as poor sea-bathing water quality. Adapted from Ministarstvo zaštite okoliša, prostornog uređenja i graditeljstva (2009, p. 10).
Based on the results of monitoring the bathing-water quality, the individual, annual, and final seabathing water quality is assessed.
The individual assessment is determined after each analysis carried out during the bathing season, according to the limit values for the microbiological parameters.
The annual assessment is determined after the end of the bathing season, based on a set of data on bathing-water quality for that particular bathing season, according to the limit values of this regulation.
The final assessment is determined after the end of the last bathing season and the three preceding bathing seasons, according to the limit values of the regulation.
Based on the individual assessment, sea-bathing water is classified as excellent, good and sufficient. Based on the annual and final assessments, sea-bathing water is classified as excellent, good, sufficient and poor. Classified bathing water is labelled on the cartographic representation and on the information board placed on the beach by a circular symbol: excellent: blue, good: green, sufficient: yellow, poor: red.
In case of sudden pollution of bathing water at beaches, the authorised entity (the County Department of Public Health) shall, upon receiving the notification on pollution, immediately carry out sampling of the sea water and submit the obtained results to
the competent administrative body in the county and to the environmental inspection. The obtained results are not taken into account (they are not included into the data set for sea-water quality evaluation) when assessing the bathing water quality.
The authorised entity should submit the results on individual assessment to the county within seven days of assessing the bathing water quality. The annual assessment must be submitted to the county by the authorised entity within thirty days after the end of bathing-water quality monitoring. Individual assessments must be submitted immediately to the ministry, and final assessment by November 5th of the current year. The ministry develops a report on the annual assessment of the Croatian Adriatic beaches, at the latest by December 15th of the current year. The first report on the final assessment must be submitted by the county to the ministry at the latest by November 5th, 2012. The ministry develops the first national report on the final assessment at the latest by December 15th, 2012. The Croatian Environment Agency should deliver the report on individual, annual, and final assessments on sea-bathing water quality on Croatian Adriatic beaches to the European Commission in accordance with the implementation of the Directive 2006/7/Ec (2006).
As an example of good practice, the Institute for Physical Planning of the Primorsko-Goranska County can be mentioned; their study on seawater beaches of the county area was developed in 1999. It displays 385 beaches, together with data on beach borders and other relevant information, shown in 1:5000 scale. The borders of the sea beaches were determined considering the data from the Study on Seawater Beaches from 1999, data on maritime domain, data from regional municipality and city plans, and data obtained by field visit to beaches. A legal framework was followed, prescribing the cartographic presentation of sea water beaches that must contain the following data (Uredba o kakvoći mora za kupanje, 2008, Art. 8):
•	The borders of the sea beach;
•	Place of outfall and quantities of waste water (Q daily);
•	Submarine outfall with identification of outfall
profile and length, and the sea depth at the place of discharge;
•	Type of waste water treatment facility;
•	Coastal springs, submarine springs, fresh water inflow and torrents inflow;
•	Coordinates (geographical longitude and latitude) of sampling points;
•	Assessing classification of bathing sea water quality.
The gis database was established, showing the measurement results and available on the Internet. Also useful for tourism purposes, it shows pictures of beaches, information on particular beach buildings, and enables visitors to comment.
Each cartographic presentation also includes the legend explaining the symbols for borders of sea beaches, areas under concession, beach equipment (availability of facilities and services on the beaches), measuring points, etc. The aforementioned gis database represents a good practice in promoting beaches and information on beaches to tourists, but it still lacks additional elements that would make it more attractive to visitors. Static character information, which should surely be added to the database, include the capacity and the position of available parking places, detailed descriptions of catering, sports, amusement, and other services and facilities on the beach, etc. Regarding dynamic character information and (given the considerable growth of online available web cameras in tourist destinations) web-camera pictures of the nearest selected beach access to the gis database should be considered.
Besides the already stated additions, the database should be promoted with appropriate marketing tools to tourists and potential visitors in order for them to obtain additional insight into the services and facilities of the tourist destination they are visiting.
The sea-bathing water quality assessment results for the Republic of Croatia sea beaches in 2011 indicate extremely high sea water quality. Specifically, from the total of 906 sampling points, 95.92% were graded excellent, 2.54% were graded good, 1.10% of sampling points were graded sufficient, and only 0.44% of sampling points were graded poor. Therefore, authors sug-
gest such positive results should be applied in better promotion of the Croatian coast. As other Mediterranean countries cannot boast such positive results in water quality, the quality of the Croatian Sea should be emphasised more.
Conclusions
Regarding the possibilities for further development of the database on Adriatic beaches, the fact that sea represents one of the most valuable resources of the tourism services both for the Croatian maritime area and for the maritime areas of other Adriatic countries (Slovenia, Italy, Montenegro, Albania) has to be taken into account. Therefore, the possibility of a joint on-line project on Adriatic beaches should be considered and nominated for e u grant programs available through Transnational Cooperation Programs
As the annual assessment of sea-bathing water quality includes probability factors for normal distribution of results, it also represents an assessment of predictability and stability of sea quality for a particular beach. This creates an objective assessment of sea bathing beach water quality, also confirmed by previous assessments based on 20 years of monitoring of sea bathing beach water quality. A part of annual evaluations for beach waters, which proved to be 'statistically poorer than expected' will find their verification in the final assessment, which will include the results of the four previous bathing seasons and, therefore, represent the real state of sea-bathing water quality on beaches.
The database on sea-bathing water quality was created, tested, and upgraded during the 2009 research season, and the professional workshops were recommended for authorised persons regarding use of database. The database offers multiple possibilities: data entry and processing, notification of public (both local inhabitants and tourists), information on local, regional, national, and international levels.
In collaboration with the Croatian Environment Agency, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning, and Construction should use the g is system as a part of database on sea water quality in order to enable input and integration of the seabathing water profile in all seven Adriatic Croatian
counties. Therefore, the beach area definition is recommended, together with the list of all buildings existing in particular beaches, as well as the arrangement of multilingual browsers to inform the public about sea-bathing water quality.
In any case, an increased number of sea-bathing water quality sampling points on beaches along the entire Adriatic coast is recommended, and the system of sea quality assessment should be immediately transparent to tourists and local inhabitants. Thus, the required security measures would be obtained, together with the standards of tidiness, content of tourism services offered, and visual constant that would make the beaches identifiable.
The design of the Internet register/database on beaches intended to promote tourism is also significant, and designing visually attractive interactive applications with information on Croatian beaches is recommended. The cooperation between mzopug and azo should be utilised in overtaking part of data and technology applied in the preparation of the database on sea-bathing water quality (gis browser, information on sea cleanliness, objects available on beaches, possibility to comment and give suggestions, etc.).
Afterwards, a system of indicators appealing to tourists could be designed (i.e. carrying capacity of beaches, parking possibilities, detailed description of available catering, sports, and other forms of beach services, etc.) together with their continuous monitoring and entry into the database. Provided indicators could contribute to the knowledge development as well as practical ideas on how to promote the area's tourist services in terms of beach resources.
New beaches, not included water quality monitoring system, but visited during summer months, could also be included in the new database. In order for tourists to be informed about seawater quality, promotion of the future database is recommended on tourist fairs and similar events. Thus, the database will be also presented to employees from the tourism sector in order to induce them to integrate the database into their regular work (particularly in boards of tourism and tourist agencies).
Apart from future development and specialisation, the database should be integrated with gis browsers
applied in the preparation of sea-bathing water quality profiles for the purpose of the market valorisation of the area, environmental protection, and growth in tourist services and demand quality. In that matter, it technologies and spatial planning could be linked together in order to improve tourist attractiveness of coastal destinations and create grounds for the future sustainable planning and development of beaches.
References
Cervantes, O., & Espejel, I. (2008). Design of an integrated evaluation index for recreational beach. Ocean & Coastal Management, 51, 410-419. Council Directive 76/160/EEC of 8 December 1975 concerning the quality of bathing water. (1976). Official Journal of the European Communities, l 31/1. Directive 2006/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 February 2006 concerning the management of bathing water quality and repealing Directive 76/160/EEC. (2006). Official Journal of the European Communities, l 64/37.
Ministarstvo zaštite okoliša, prostornog uređenja i graditeljstva. (2009). Nacionalno izvješće o kakvoći mora na plažama hrvatskog Jadrana u 2009. godini. Retrieved from http://www.mzoip.hr/doc/publikacije/izvijesce_hr _2009.pdf
Ministarstvo zaštite okoliša, prostornog uređenja i graditeljstva. (2009). Nacionalno izvješće o kakvoći mora na plažama hrvatskog Jadrana u 2009. godini. Zagreb, Croatia: Ministarstvo zaštite okoliša, prostornog uređenja i graditeljstva.
Uredba o kakvoći mora za kupanje. (2008). Narodne novine, No. 73.
Zakon o zaštiti okoliša. (2007). Narodne novine, No. 110.
Sosed, čutiš nostalgijo?
Tina Šegota in Zlatko Jančič
Kljub dejstvu, daje Slovenija eden izmed najbolj pomembnih emitivnih turističnih trgov za hrvaški turizem, je malo znanega o vedenju mlajših turistov, ki prihajajo iz te Hrvaški sosednje države. Še manj znanega pa je o povezavi slednjega s fenomenom tako imenovane jugonostalgije. Raziskava se osredotoča na možnost segmentacije turističnega trga s poudarkom na nostalgiji. Konkretneje, cilji raziskave so (1) določiti motive mladih Slovencev za obisk Hrvaške, (2) definirati segmente (klastre) obiskovalcev, in sicer glede na percepcijo o destinaciji in (3) določiti vpliv jugonostalgije na motive za obisk. Ugotovitve raziskave kažejo, da lahko mlade obiskovalce razdelimo na štiri različne segmente s posebnimi lastnostmi glede na percepcijo o destinaciji in na vpliv jugonostalgije. Rezultati so lahko uporabni pri destinacijskem menedžmentu, ob oblikovanju turističnih strategij in oglaševanju destinacije. Ključne besede: motivi za potovanje; percepcija destinacije; segmentacija trga;
jugonostalgija Academica Turistica, 6(2), 3-15
Politična ekonomija družbenih omrežij: kakšen pomen ima za turizem? Primer YouTube
Maja Turnšek Hančič, Bojan Kurež, Boštjan Brumen, Maja Rosi in Marjetka Rangus
Pričujoči prispevek temelji na teoriji politične ekonomije (novih) omrežij. Njegov namen je preseči dve prezrti področji v obstoječi literaturi o družbenih omrežjih in turizmu. Prvo je vloga družbenih posrednikov, kakršen je YouTube, v posredovanju pri komunikaciji med turisti, gostitelji in turistično industrijo. Drugo je vloga, ki jo imajo družbena omrežja v turizmu pri omogočanju komunikacije med turisti in gostitelji. Uporabili smo analitična orodja s področja politične ekonomije in se osredotočili na lastniško strukturo, zakonodajno regulativo in načine pretvorbe komunikacije v izdelke, ki jih je mogoče tržiti prek YouTube. Slednje analiziramo tako kot dejavnike, ki vplivajo na turistično industrijo, kot tudi glede na njihov vpliv v družbi.
Ključne besede: turizem; družbena omrežja; YouTube; politična ekonomija Academica Turistica, 6(2), 17-28
Kompetitivnost Pomurja kot turistične destinacije
Ivan Turčan in Doris Gomezelj Omerzel
V Sloveniji že sedaj obstajajo velike razlike med regijami. Kljub dejstvu, da je pomurska regija gospodarsko najmanj razvita in da v Sloveniji po številnih statističnih kazalcih zaseda zadnje mesto, velja za turistično privlačno regijo. V raziskavi obravnavamo problematiko konkurenčnosti pomurske regije kot turistične destina-cije. Pregled glavnih pojmov je obravnavan v teoretičnih izhodiščih, kjer so podrobneje predstavljene tudi značilnosti pomurske regije. Cilj prispevka je raziskati položaj pomurske regije kot turistične destinacije v zavesti turističnih ponudnikov. Odgovor na to nam daje analiza posameznih dejavnikov konkurenčnosti. Raziskovalne
domneve so ovrednotene na podlagi testiranja dimenzij konkurenčnosti turistične destinacije, do katerih smo iz več spremenljivk prišli z uporabo metode glavnih komponent. Vse tri raziskovalne hipoteze smo potrdili in sicer daje Pomurska regija (1) konkurenčnejša na področju »naravni in kulturni viri« kot na področju »izgrajeni viri«, (2) konkurenčnejša na področju »viri« kot na področju »management« in (3) konkurenčnejša na področju »podporni viri« kot na področju »izgrajeni viri«. Ključne besede: turistična destinacija; kompetitivnost; model kompetitivnosti;
Pomurje Academica Turistica, 6(2), 29-41
Načrtovanje in razvoj destinacije golf turizma
Armand Faganel in Nataša SlakValek
Namen članka je bolje razumeti pričakovanja golfistov ter njihove izkušnje v Sloveniji ter predlagati razvoj strategije države kot destinacije za golf turizem. Uporabljene metode so hierarhična cluster analiza z Wardovo metodo, analiza variance (anova), komparativna metoda, pregled literature in študija primera. Na osnovi anketiranja 900 golfistov so bili identificirani štirje vedenjski tržni segmenti ter ocenjen potencial države, da bi se razvila v priznano destinacijo za golf turizem. Ugotovljeno je bilo, da ima Slovenija atipične golfiste. Ob upoštevanju nedavnih družbenih in ekonomskih razmer morajo turistični deležniki načrtovati možnosti razvoja destinacije za desetletja vnaprej. Ker tudi število golf igrišč narašča, bodo golfisti iskali enkratne izkušnje. Slovenija je lahko dostopna, pozicionirana centralno za večino evropskih držav, cestne povezave so odlične, težava je le premajhno število povezav in letov na osrednje letališče. Razvijalci turističnih strategij bodo lahko uporabili ugotovitve raziskave za načrtovalne faze opredeljevanja Slovenije kot turistične destinacije. Ključne besede: turizem; segmentiranje; marketinška strategija; golf destinacija;
Slovenija Academica Turistica, 6(2), 43-55
Posredovanje vedenja o trajnostno naravnani inovativnosti v turizmu: izzivi in priložnosti
Aleksandra Brezovec
Članek obravnava izzive in možnosti vzpostavljanja vedenja o trajnostno naravnani inovativnosti na področju turizma. Trajnostno naravnana inovativnost postaja vedno pomembnejša na mnogih področjih, vključno s turizmom. Slednjega opredeljujemo kot oblikovanje novih trgov, izdelkov, storitev ali procesov iz družbenih, etičnih in okoljskih nagibov. V turistični panogi je pomemben del znanja o okoljskih in družbenih vplivih turizma, vendar to znanje preredko pride do širšega družbenega okolja, da bi oblikovali ne le trajnostno naravnan turizem, ampak tudi trajnostno naravnano družbo. Da bi zamisli in prakse trajnostnega turizma lahko spremenile vedenje turistov in celotno turistično panogo, članek predlaga načine globljega in
širšega posredovanja teh zamisli. Z namenom poiskati glavne izzive trajnostno naravnane inovativnosti v turizmu in predlaganja učinkovitih načinov posredovanja informacij o trajnostni inovativnosti v turizmu smo preučili literaturo z različnih področij. Obravnavane so tudi različne oblike posredovanja vedenja o družbeni odgovornosti, pri katerih se lahko udeleženci neposredno seznanijo s tematiko trajnosti v turizmu.
Ključne besede: trajnostno naravnana inovativnost; turizem; družbena odgovornost Academica Turistica, 6(2), 57-63
Razvoj baze podatkov o plažah: študija primera hrvaške jadranske obale
Marinela Krstinić Nižić in Jelena Đurkin
Današnje turiste in lokalne skupnosti zelo zanima stanje in kakovost plaž, kar je botrovalo potrebi po razvoju transparentne baze podatkov o plažah. Namen članka je preučiti sestavine takšne baze podatkov, ki je lahko zelo uporaben vir podatkov za obiskovalce in lokalno prebivalstvo. Članek se začne s kratkim pregledom literature o tej tematiki, sledi pa opis primera dobre prakse s področja upravljanja in prostorskega načrtovanja hrvaških plaž. Hrvaško ministrstvo za zaščito okolja, prostorsko načrtovanje in gradnjo je v sodelovanju s splitskim inštitutom za oceanografijo in ribištvo ter hrvaško okoljsko agencijo razvilo bazo podatkov o kakovosti kopalnih voda ter spletno aplikacijo za vnos, obdelavo in vrednotenje podatkov, vključno z javno objavo podatkov o kakovosti kopalnih voda na hrvaški jadranski obali. Ta baza podatkov je v članku analizirana, predlagana pa je tudi zasnova sistema parametrov, zanimivih za turiste (zmogljivosti plaž in parkirišč ter športne in druge zmogljivosti na kopališčih) ter njihovega stalnega spremljanja in vnosa vbazo podatkov. Na ta način bi lahko posamezne plaže postale prepoznavne po svoji varnosti, čistoči in opremljenosti. Najpomembnejše ugotovitve članka se nanašajo na potrebo po razvoju baze podatkov o plažah, predlagane pa so tudi izboljšave obstoječih baz podatkov s povezavo z brskalniki gis in pripravo novega nabora indikatorjev ter ostalih podatkov, ki so na voljo. Vse z namenom tržnega vrednotenja prostora, varovanja okolja ter rasti na področju kakovosti turistične ponudbe in povpraševanja.
Ključne besede: razvoj baze podatkov; inovativnost; turizem; prostorsko načrtovanje Academica Turistica, 6(2), 65-73
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Tables. Each table should be submitted on a separate page in a Word document after References. Each table shall have a brief caption; explanatory matter should be in the footnotes below the table. The table shall contain means and the units of variation (sd, se, etc.) and must be free of nonsignificant decimal places. Abbreviations used in the tables must be consistent with those used in the text and figures. Definition
symbols should be listed in the order of appearance, determined by reading horizontally across the table and should be identified by standard symbols. All tables should be numbered consecutively (Table 1, Table 2, etc.).
Figures. Captions are required for all Figures and shall appear on a separate manuscript page, beneath table captions. Each figure should be saved as a separate file without captions and named as Figure 1, etc. Files should be submitted in *.tiff or *.jpeg format. Photographs should be saved at at least 300 dpi. Line art images should be saved at 1200 dpi. Lettering (symbols, letters, and numbers) should be between 8 and 9 points, with consistent spacing and alignment. Font face may be Serif (Minion) or Sans Serif (Myriad). Line width should be .5 point or greater. Any extra white or black space surrounding the image should be cropped. Ensure that subject-identifying information (i.e., faces, names, or any other identifying features) is cropped out or opaqued. Prior to publication, the author(s) should obtain all necessary authorizations for the publication of the illustrative matter and submit them to the Editorial Board. All figures should be numbered consecutively (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). The journal will be printed in black and white.
References
References should be formatted according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2009).
The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. References should be complete and contain all the authors (up to six) that have been listed in the title of the original publication. If the author is unknown, start with the title of the work. If you are citing a work that is in print but has not yet been published, state all the data and instead of the publication year write 'in print.'
Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference
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 (6th ed.). Washington, dc: Author. Swarbrooke, J., & Horner, S. (2007). Consumer behaviour in tourism. Oxford, England: ButterworthHeinemann.
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 of population, 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).
Manuscript Submission
The main manuscript document should be in Microsoft Word document format and the article should be submitted to http://pkp.turistica.si/index.php/test/ index
Please make sure that you do not leave any trace of your identity in the submitted files. Otherwise, your identity can be accidentally revealed to reviewers and your manuscript might be rejected.
We are introducing new manuscript submission system. The first responses from the authors are positive, but we still apologise for any inconvenience.
For technical assistance please contact mitja.petelin @turistica.si and for additional information regarding article publication contact the Editorial Board at academica@turistica.si
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