Competitive Position of Croatia at The Mediterranean Tourism Market

Abstract

At the contemporary increasingly open and integrated world tourism market competitiveness measurements have become the
most important indicators for receptive tourism countries worldwide. Almost every tourism country conception, strategies, policy and plan
contain indicators of tourism country competitiveness. The main reason for lies on one hand in the high level of accessibility of almost
every tourism destination and on the other hand in the low capability of the tourism destination differentiation toward other competitors at
the tourism market. Every receptive tourism country, including Croatia, has been making constant efforts to achieve and sustain the
competitive advantage. Therefore, the main aim of the paper is to determine, on the basis of the sampled indicators, the competitive
position of Croatia at the Mediterranean tourism market among the selected nineteen direct and indirect competitors. An additional
purpose is to offer directions to obtain a better market position and achieve long term competitive advantage. In order to gain insight into
the Croatian tourism position among the Mediterranean competitors, the paper contains consecutive indicators of the market share for
the analysed receptive tourism market: the real tourism share, proportional market share, index of penetration and coefficient of the
relative competitiveness. Since competitiveness is a distinctly complex concept which is incessantly reflection of subjective observations
of qualitative features, for the purpose of the research indicators were used that applied quantification of the qualitative attributes and
that provide an objective comparison. The countries that are included in the research are, according to the indicators, at different levels
of economic and social development and also each of them operates at specific development level in different circumstances which are
in any cases incompatible with another country that has completely different development level. Therefore the competitive analysis will
be based on description and factography.