INFLUENCE OF SPORT TOURISM ON SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN EASTERN CROATIA

Sport tourism destinations attract tourists by engaging dominantly natural resources in the process of creating tourism experience. Contemporary trends on sport tourism market suggest that there is a growing need to include tourists in adventurous activities and to enrich the demand side of sport tourism market. Such competitive environment provides numerous opportunities for creating high quality sport tourism products and govern destination strategies towards sustainable development. It is, however, crucial for sport tourism destination to define its most competitive resources that will meet the needs of specific group of sport tourists (professional athletes, leisure athletes, amateur athletes.). Engaging destinations' resources and local community into creation of sport tourism products constitutes a sound basis for implementing sustainable tourism policies. Based on the conducted research it is possible to argue that resources in Eastern Croatia can be used and employed in the process of creating competitive sport tourism products. However, it is crucial to create and implement development strategies that would be used by stakeholders in order to achieve the set objectives and meet the postulates of sustainability. Eastern Croatia has numerous natural potentials and preconditions for development of sustainable sport tourism destinations. Additionally, there is a potential in built resources that provide added value to sport tourism product and enable larger opportunities for engaging available infrastructure in development of sport tourism destinations. Objectives of the paper are therefore focused on defining the stage of sport tourism development in Eastern Croatia and analyzing the existing natural and built tourism resources that might be engaged more intensively in creation of sport tourism destinations within that area. The contribution of this paper is seen in the overview of the scientific literature in the field of sustainable sport tourism development, as well as in the analysis of tourism resources engaged in the process of creating sport tourism products in the area of Eastern Croatia. This research is conducted by using available secondary data sources and results are interpreted by chosen methods of descriptive statistics. Limitations of the research can be defined through the lack of primary research, as it would be possible to make more conclusions about the influence of sport tourism on sustainable tourism development in Eastern Croatia if stakeholders were involved, primarily those on the supply side of the market. Future research should provide more specific analysis of the reached stage of sport tourism development in the area of Eastern Croatia, as well as the analysis of sustainability of development process. Results of the research yield suggestions for sustainable development policy-making process based on sport tourism product. In the long run this would enable sustainability of local community and destinations' resources, while ensuring higher quality of sport tourism experience.