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Comparative Analysis of the Rating of the

Event, Entertainment, Sports and Excursion

Offering by Tourists and Managers, and the

Development of Rural Tourism in Istria

Desimir Bokovi

Ana Teak

Dragoljub Amidi

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Introduction

In the past decade, the traditional offering of sun and sea travels has

undergone change, that is, it has been supplemented with a variety of

other services and facilities that come together to present a single

package.

All this is a reflection of a series of social trends that are changing

modern society, with the greatest impact coming from demographic

change and the aging of populations in Europe and advanced countries

around the world.

Regardless of the growing importance of the natural resource base,

which represents a specific competitive advantage of the Istria tourist

destination, it is essential to develop other products and services of theoffering such as sports and recreation, entertainment, culture, events,

animation and excursions.

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...

Increasingly discerning tourists are driving the need for improving

the tourism product and differentiating it through quality, which

is becoming an ever more important dimension of marketing in

tourism.

The main purpose oft his paper is to compare tourists opinion

about manifestation, sports, entertainment, animation and

excursion offer in Istria County tourism destination and with

managerial opinion on tourists perception on this kind of offer.

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Methodology - tourists

Conducted during July,

August and September 2008

Sampling

Research cites: Pula and

Medulin 31%, Pore 34%,Umag 16% and Rovinj 19%

Languages provided: English,

German, Italian, Russian,

Slovenian, Slovak, Czech and

Croatian 22 accommodation facilities

Total of 1,836 questionnaires

were collected

Questionnaire - 15 questions

divided into four sections

1stsectiondemography

2nd sectionways of information

collection

3rd sectiontourists preferences

for different forms of

entertainment, excursions,animation, sports and

manifestations

4th sectiontourists satisfaction

with the services

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Methodology - managers

Conducted during

September, October and

November 2008

Total of 60 questionnaireswere collected

Levels of tourism

management

Responders

Frequency %

Company manager 5 8,33

Hotel manager 25 41,67Agency manager 8 13,33

Restaurant manager 9 15,00

Procurement Manager 4 6,67

Tourist Board Manager 5 8,33

Development Manager 2 3,33

Other 2 3,33

Total 60 100,00

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Comparison of ratings of the event and

festival offering

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Comparison of ratings of the entertainment

offering

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Comparison of ratings of the sports offering

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Comparison of ratings of the excursion offering

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Comparison of the ratings of the animation

offering

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Conclusion

There is a certain discrepancy between the attitudes of tourists and

the opinions of tourist managers regarding how tourists perceive

the event, entertainment, sport, excursion and animation offering.

Tourists generally consider the offering of these additional servicesas being satisfactory.

Tourist mangers believe that tourists are the most satisfied with

the excursion offering, and least satisfied with the entertainment

offering.

Tourist managers are required to be innovative, but recently theyhave begun focusing heavily on rationalising operations through

savings in labour, so, they fail to design new facilities and services

for the tourism offering, resulting in a lacking offering

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...

The rural part of Istria possesses a relatively rich offering of diverseevents and entertainment.

Particularly popular are village events that can be a combination of

eno-gastronomy, culture, sports and music.

Tourists interested in seeing the countryside could be provided the

opportunity of practicing specific types of sports in the outdoors, suchas hiking, hunting, bicycling, cave exploring, paragliding and rock

climbing.

The offering of excursions to protected areas could be improved by

including excursions to the Uka Nature Park.

There should also be more excursions to rural villages in Istria.

All of these offerings, once designed, should be accompanied with the

appropriate promotional activities.

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