MANAGEMENT OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DESTINATION THROUGH STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION

Destination presents a set of different organizations and individuals who can work towards realising the same objectives or their objectives can be diametrically opposed. Harmonisation of such objectives in a unique strategic development of the entire destination is usually taken over by destination management organization (DMO) established to accomplish the mentioned objective. The opposed interests in such a system as complex as tourism result in the degradation of space and society in which tourism takes place. Therefore sustainable development in tourism represents a primary concept of development today. Tourism is a fast growing phenomenon and its sustainable development represents a necessity. Besides the positive economic outputs of tourism, we should also mention its negative impact on the particular destination, the environmental degradation to some extent, as well as socio-economic elements of local community. Accordingly, multi-stakeholder concept in destination management should include all interest and influential groups in tourism development planning. Such integrated destination management connects all stakeholders independent from influence or interest powers to participate directly or indirectly in creating and implementing the quality tourism development. This concept's basic function is connecting and coordinating stakeholders with different interests within a tourism destination, in order to create quality product and a recognizable destination image, and to achieve a long-term sustainable competitiveness on the market. However, based on the stakeholder approach, the most emphasized issue in sustainable tourism development concept is the government that holds a key role in socio-economic development. In this paper, we analysed current involvement of stakeholders in Zadar County tourism development and examined their interest in future involvement in sustainable destination development. Based on the analysis of focus group research results, that included 87 interested stakeholders from all segments of tourist industry, public services, local administration and self-government, and in comparison with the results of tourism demand research on the non-random sample of 1,697 tourists, we draw conclusions on the level of stakeholder involvement and cooperation in creating the sustainable destination. The aim of this paper is to offer recommendations for harmonizing development directions of the sustainable destination in order to reduce differences among stakeholders.