BRANDING OF KVARNER REGION AS A BATHING DESTINATION

Tourism of the Republic of Croatia, and Kvarner, as traditionally-marketing and promotion "synonym" for Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, represents a strategic economic activity. Accordingly, there are attempts to find different modalities for increasing the quality of the tourism product and increasing the competitiveness and realization of more substantial share of tourism in Croatian gross domestic product. Therefore, Kvarner represents receptive market, within which agricultural, but also all other products and services from the wider area of Croatia, are available to the tourist demand, as well as the very Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, by which also in the practical sense "universality" and the single economic objective about economic integration of the sea ("blue") and the continental ("green") line of Croatian and the County is realized. Approaches in modelling of competing diversification models are different within each Croatian tourist destination. Kvarner is basing its competitiveness, among others, also on the overall market offer of the quality and diversified Croatian products, using at the same time brand of bathing beaches as sales media. The intention is that Kvarner through systematic process becomes a bathing destination, since a significant portion of emitive tourist market perceives Kvarner with identification light motive of "sea and sea-based products" as the basic motive of tourist arrivals. Previous uneven and selective approach in the management of beaches, that is multiple diversification in determining the priorities of tourism development, as well as certain lack of systematicness in the repositioning of Kvarner as a destination of bathing tourism, represents certain limitations, but also unexploited possibilities for tourism development of Kvarner. Concretely, that was confirmed by the research results of the authors of this paper, regarding bathing beaches of Kvarner. In this paper, the authors have defined the importance of bathing tourism in Kvarner as a market, selling "media" for economic connecting of "sea" and "continental" Croatia, its historical dimension, as well as the necessity of repositioning the Kvarner as a destination of bathing tourism, and pointed to the importance of managing the Kvarner beaches by establishing a balance between preserving the natural values of beaches and ensuring the sustainable use of their development potential through branding.