Jasmina Grzinic[1]

Aljosa Vitasovic[2]

If we consider tourism as a heterogeneous phenomenon, dynamic and constantly evolving in trying to satisfy the needs of clients and tourist workers, global tourist trends impose a new understanding of tourism and the appearance of “new” tourists. Therefore, the management of tourist destinations has to adapt the offer to the new requests.

The destination’s attractive elements have to be completed with additional activities while the tourist destination’s quality is measured solely on the basis of experience. What causes the development of cultural tourism is precisely this type of diversification of needs and motives, which make people choose a certain destination and which are based completely or partially on culture.

The paper aims at presenting the current state of tourism in the Municipality of Fazana, not so much in economic terms but from the standpoint of the perception of tourists and the domicile population of the Municipality of Fažana seen as a tourist destination. We have concluded that visits to the Municipality of Fažana are motivated by new experiences and new adventures. Cultural tourism and the formation of a cultural tourist product for a tourist destination like the Municipality of Fažana have many advantages, as is confirmed in strategic documents of the Municipality.

Key words: Fažana, cultural tourism, cultural product, cultural tourist, Istria.

  1. INTRODUCTION

If we consider tourism as a heterogeneous phenomenon, dynamic and constantly evolving in trying to satisfy the needs of clients and tourist workers, global tourist trends impose a new understanding of tourism and the appearance of “new” tourists. People involved in tourist trends are today more experienced, showing a greater number of needs not only within the destination but also during the trip to get to the destination. The destination’s attractive elements have to be completed with additional activities while the tourist destination’s quality is measured solely on the basis of experience. This diversification of needs and motives making people chose a certain destination results in the development of alternative tourism where the accent is on the tourist product and not on quantity.

From its very beginnings, when tourism was the privilege of the chosen, it evolved in a social phenomenon enabling us to protect local interests, preserve and present cultural and historical heritage and differentiate the destination from its direct competitors, all with the aim of raising the quality of life for the domicile population that has to be included in all forms of planning.

According to information from the World Tourist Organization, the number of foreign tourists in 2007 was around 898 million arrivals, of which no less than 480 million arrivals was realized in Europe.

A modern tourist product suitable for the “new” tourists requires developing special interests tourism and its variations. If we accept the world’s trends in tourism we have to conclude that cultural variety is the basic competitive advantage. Cultural tourism aims at offering the experience of a new culture, an experience that is different from what the tourist can have in his own country. These notions stem from the basic motives stimulating travelers with special interests, namely novelty and education and not only recreation. This means that the tourist wants an active participation in the creation of his tourist package arrangement as well as a participation in the daily life of the domicile population.

The relation of culture and tourism can also be observed as a relation of tradition and modernity, where culture represents historical values, society’s cultural tradition, affiliation to a cultural circle, while tourism incorporates change and represents the present day. Cultural tourism merges the concepts of tourism and culture, where on one hand culture has a direct impact on the development of tourism, while on the other hand tourism influences culture which becomes the crucial motive for traveling.

Culture represents behavioral patterns, knowledge and values transferred to the next generation. It represents an interaction between people in social relations and their material production and creation. In this way we obtain a link between culture and tourism since tourism represents a step aside from the daily routine and a rediscovery of our roots. The desire to discover one’s own and foreign cultures is the foundation for the development of cultural tourism.

Tourists influence the local community both positively and negatively. They bring to the destination their traditions, beliefs and expectations, different behavior patterns. They are usually not sensitive to the local culture mainly because of a lack of knowledge. They fail to integrate into society but rather oppose and confront it. This is dangerous because it makes society modify its norms.

During the main tourist season the domicile population bears the burden of the negative external factors of tourism, which is not always simple and is often the cause of social tension. The local population can respond to the situation in two ways: the first includes rejecting visitors, while the other accepts the pattern of behavior of the foreign visitors, i.e. the domicile population accepts the behavior of tourists who are on vacation.

When defining tourism as a social phenomenon, we need to avoid conflicts between visitors and locals, since the local population represents part of the cultural heritage defining the value of the tourist destination itself.

Tourism can be a threat to traditions but it can also be an instrument for the preservation of old traditions and customs because the community, in presenting its culture and way of life, actually preserves its identity. It is precisely because of the tourist valorization of culture that the domicile community starts contemplating its own culture and tries to preserve its traditions, arts, crafts, cuisine, dances, etc. The preservation and maintenance of cultural heritage neutralizes the appearance of pseudo-culture, when cultural values are used exclusively for the purpose of being presented to tourists. In order to be able to successfully place a destination on the tourist market, we need to know the motives behind arrivals to the destination and the visit to cultural attractions, and also have feedback on whether the tourists are satisfied with the offered cultural “product” or how the product could be improved. Culture and cultural heritage need to be used to satisfy tourist needs but in a way that points out the correlation between cultural resources like monuments, venues and similar on one hand, and the expected experience of the tourist on the other. The cultural “product” has to be presented in the form of an attraction “product” offered to tourists wishing to learn about the past and present heritage of the destination of their choice.

Although this paper deals with Fazana as a tourist destination, it does not try to determine the conditions of tourist destination, nor does it ponder the economic elements like tourist turnover and similar indicators. It will not deal with the issue of communicativeness of the tourist destination or with the direct or indirect receptive factors of the tourist destination. The basic reason for all of this is that Fazana has already been accepted as tourist destination. Such reasoning stems from the Municipality of Fazana itself, which directs any economic development in the frame of tourist destination, therefore also the sustainability of tourism in its area, towards raising the quality of life of the local population through positive external factors of economic activities.

  1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

The expression “destination” originated in the Latin word “destinatio”, meaning the place to which we are traveling. In its original meaning it is a synonym of aim, whether final or not. In tourism terminology the term tourist destination came into use in the 1970ies. A combination of various mentioned components of a tourist destination we create one or more tourist products. The term tourist destination has been developed and researched by a small number of our authors (Vukonić,1998; Hitrec, 1995) and a larger number of foreign authors (Manente, Cerato, 1993). The majority of empirical research is not trying to simply define the term but rather deals with locations of interest. In that sense, interesting locations are analyzed and measured in terms of attractiveness, satisfaction of visitors, success in managing the movements of visitors and the destination itself (Dobre, R. et al.: 2004 ).

A tourist destination is a spatial unit in which size is of no importance, what matters is the capability to attract tourists (Leiper, 1995; Kotler, Bowen, Makens, 1996; Magaš, 1997; Bieger, 1998; Cooper, Fletcher, Gilbert et al., 1998; Vukonić, 1998; Žuvela, 1998; Pechlaner, 1999).

The majority of tourist destinations is a mixture of the following components (the so-called six As) (Cooper, Fletcher, Gilbert et al., 1998: 103; Buhalis, 2000: 98):[3]

  1. Attractions – they imply natural and social attractions, important to ensure initial motivation of tourists to come to the destination.
  2. Amenities – encompass accommodation and catering facilities, trade, entertainment and other services
  3. Accessibility – relates to the development and maintaining of effective traffic connections with emission markets (international traffic terminals and local transportation).
  4. Available packages – imply package-arrangements prepared beforehand by intermediaries and their representatives.
  5. Activities – relate to all available activities in the destination and all the things the consumer will do while staying at the destination.
  6. Ancillary services – include marketing, developmental and coordination activities implemented by organizations in the destination for the needs of consumers and industry.
  1. CULTURAL TOURISM

Cultural tourism is a complex term encompassing material and spiritual components of culture through visits to monuments, exhibitions, manifestations, traditions of the receptive area, tasting of the local gastro offer, stay in traditional architecture facilities. The term of cultural tourism generally applies to traveling including visits to cultural resources regardless of motivation. However, cultural tourism has to be observed as a group of relations and phenomena stemming from visits by non-resident persons who are completely or in part motivated by culture.

The development of cultural tourism raises the importance and attractiveness of the destination, especially if less known. Cultural tourism denotes movements of people caused by cultural attractions motivated by the desire to gather new information and experience in order to satisfy their cultural needs (Richard, Greg, 1999). Cultural tourism is specific interests tourism based on the search for… and participation in new and important cultural experiences, whether esthetic, intellectual, emotional or psychological (Reisinger, Yvette, 1994).

The growth of demand for cultural tourism is conditioned by socio-demographic changes and changes in the way of life, a higher degree of education and a growth in the number of people of older age with a strong interest for culture. Tourists want to relax but also to grow spiritually. In cultural tourism, the main motives of tourist visits are cultural institutions (museums, theaters, etc.), manifestations, monuments, religion, but also tradition, songs, folklore and folk stories.

Every tourist destination adapts the development of cultural tourism according to its specificities, so that today we can tell between heritage tourism, historical tourism and art tourism. Cultural tourism always overlaps with other forms of tourism like gastronomical, religious, transit and similar.

Cultural tourists want contact with their host and his culture and less and less perceive the tourist location as passive observers. Nevertheless, in order to be considered cultural tourists, they have to be motivated by culture to a certain extent. Current research proves that cultural tourists have above average income and education, are middle aged or older, and to a large extent women. In spite of clear results, we have to accept the non homogeneity of such a group, i.e. the fact that they differ according to the place culture takes in their decision to visit a certain tourist destination.

Visiting a cultural attraction does not have to be the primary motive which can be something completely different, however, in the destination the tourist is involved in the cultural life of the destination. According to market research, in Croatia only 7.5% of respondents are motivated exclusively by culture and the same percentage is also valid for the Municipality of Fazana. Inside that number and on the grounds of the extent to which culture plays a role in their motivation, we differentiate:

- tourists motivated by culture (5-15% of tourist and approx. 15% of locals) – attracted by elite cultural events, like to be treated as special guests

- tourists inspired by culture (30% of tourists and approx. 15% of locals) – showing superficial interest for culture, attracted by popular, well known attractions, are only partially motivated by culture and have a strong perception of value for money

- tourists attracted by culture (20% of tourists and approx. 20% of locals) – do not plan visits to cultural attractions but decide to visit cultural attractions when already at the destination, the base to attract such tourists is timely information, accessibility of the attraction and easy to book tickets.

Local demand is tied to the free time of the population, which influences the creation of attractiveness we can define as the core around which to develop cultural tourism.

  1. CULTURAL TOURISM SUSTAINABILITY

Although we can measure economic effects over a brief period, the efforts of the local self-government are directed to realizing positive social effects. In cultural tourism there is a growing interest for public use of cultural resources, which can endanger them further. Important influences of tourism have been confirmed on the following resources and environment:

- natural ecosystem and resources (land, fauna, flora, landscape and air)

- built environment (especially architectural heritage)

- local community (culture, system of values, attitudes)

- local, regional and national economy

Sustainable tourism represents that kind of development which takes equal consideration of the way of traveling, of the tourists’ needs and the interests of the domicile population. By accepting such a definition we have to realize the influence of cultural tourism on the destination and the local community. There is a possibility to ruin and overly exploit cultural goods. This problem is prevented by calculating the capacity of the attraction which presupposes the upper limit of tourist activities, per attraction, over which there is an overload of space, a degradation of the environment and a decrease of the customer’s satisfaction. The protection of cultural resources is crucial to the attractiveness of the destination and a long-term sustainability. It is implemented by including historical localities in the tourist offer, thus preventing further devastation, preserves the locality and realizes additional economic profit. Finances obtained in this way should be directed not only to the preservation of the locality but also to the development of new tourist products.

The role of the local self-government in preserving the authenticity of the area reflects in physical planning, which indirectly also represents the spatial planning of the tourist attractions that are part of the tourist product. In its Physical Plans of both higher and lower order, the Municipality of Fazana is protecting its area from unsuitable development that might damage the overall image of the locality, i.e. the attraction itself.

The paper uses the example of the construction of Fazana as a destination with cultural elements while trying to increase attractiveness in tourism in order to make the locality recognizable and established in tourism.

  1. FAZANA AS TOURIST DESTINATION

Tourist valorization implies a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of tourist motives, so that the research results point to the development of cultural tourism in Fažana as the main kind of tourism.

The world tourist organization predicts a growth of demand by a 15% a year until 2020, while today 37% of all tourist travels include some form of cultural tourism.

A quality development of tourism requires an interaction of various factors in the tourist destination. All factors act independently, however, they depend on the level of implementation of every single one and their quality and diversity affect the satisfaction of the tourists with their stay in the destination. The most important factors indispensable for the development of tourism in a destination are the following: accessibility of the destination, existence of tourist attractions that motivate the visit, accommodation and food as generic tourist services and the mediation service.

Tourists see accessibility as a combination of a number of factors. In order to be able to choose a destination every potential visitor has to have enough information on its tourist offer and besides accessible information, the destination has to be accessible physically.

The Municipality of Fazana, i.e. the Region of Istria, can be defined as exceptionally accessible considering its geographical location in relation to the main European emitting markets. As for transport accessibility, there is an initial advantage because visitors can arrive by all means of transport: road (Istrian Y), sea (Pula harbour) and air (Pula airport). There is also the railroad although it is more relevant for the transport of goods than passengers.

The Municipality of Fazana is increasingly accessible to potential tourists because of numerous promotional activities of the Tourist Association of the Municipality, including its participation on international tourist events, and indirectly also because of better recognizability of the Istrian Region as a very attractive destination.

Tourist attractions are an important factor of any destination. We usually divide them in natural (geographical) and social (like cultural and historical monuments, cultural and sports events or manifestations). The Municipality of Fazana is a destination chosen by foreign tourists for its natural resources, Mediterranean climate, sun and crystal-clear sea. Nevertheless, Fazana also has a series of attractions like historical and archaeological locations, an adjacent national park and a large number of manifestations (Small Fishing Academy, Pilchard Party, etc.)

Besides an attractive basis, the destination has to have good accommodation facilities. The accommodation capacity of the destination includes facilities like hotels, camping sites, private and other forms of accommodation, as well as restaurants and other facilities. The making of physical planning documentation ensures an optimal harmonization of the receptive capacities with the manifestation of the place in space, with the aim of pointing out its peculiarity.