IMPORTANCE OF ENTERPRISES IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL TOURISM OF CONTINENTAL CROATIA

Today, in the twenty-first century, rural tourism is a topic that is increasingly discussed in professional and scientific literature. However, its terminological definition is still insufficiently defined as any other occurrences and terms that are related to it. The aim of the paper is to research the theoretical issues of rural tourism development and the role and significance of the elements important for entrepreneurs in the sustainable development of rural tourism in continental Croatia. The purpose of the research is to determine whether rural tourism entrepreneurs consider networking in clusters and the creation of an integrated tourist product for specific forms of tourism important. General scientific methods such as desk research, analysis, synthesis, compilation arev used in the paper, and for the primary research the method of descriptive statistics is used. Spearman's correlation coefficient was used to test statistically significant correlations between the importance elements for entrepreneurs. Data collected through primary research were analysed by appropriate statistical methods using the software program for social sciences Minitab, Ver. 17, which provides various forms of statistical analysis such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis, regression analysis, variance analysis. The basic starting point for the hypothesis is that the long-term sustainable development of rural tourism in continental Croatia can be achieved through greater entrepreneurial engagement through networking of entrepreneurs in clusters and the creation of an integrated tourist offer of different types of tourism. The rural tourism offer is very scarce and highly oscillated in its quality, which is attributed to a bad entrepreneurial initiative and national policy of neglecting tourist development of this area. Investment projects are the basis for introducing the principle of sustainable development of rural tourism in continental tourist destinations. In order to apply the principles of sustainable development, existing and new projects should respect the ecological, socio-cultural and the economic principles of sustainable development of the destination. By integrating entrepreneurs dealing with rural tourism and providing assistance with financial programs, an integrated tourism product of rural tourism and complementary specific forms of tourism would be developed to achieve long-term sustainability of entrepreneurial projects. In the development of rural tourism, it is necessary to apply the concept of sustainable development based on the fundamental features on which it rests.