The Mediterranean is the world’s number one tourist destination and the biggest
tourism region in the world, which has been visited by 260 million tourists in
1990 and what is more, it is expected that this number will increase to 655
million by the year 2025. In the last 10 years Croatia and Turkey became two of
the most popular Mediterranean destinations, and joined the trend of a growing
number of European cities that are promoting the development of tourism in
order to overcome the post-industrial crisis, or as in the case of Croatia, the
post-war crisis. Consequently, today both countries see tourism as their
economic future. However, to achieve continuous and sustainable development of
tourism, three interrelated aspects should be taken into consideration:
economic, social, and environmental. The main question that we tried to answer
is in what ways tourism is contributing to the sustainable development of the
local community - based on the case studies of Alanya in Turkey, and Dubrovnik
in Croatia. Both communities have experienced rapid development of the tourism
sector in the last 10 years, which still seems to rise continuously. As a
result, various impacts have occurred. Some of them are positive and there is
an obvious contribution to sustainable development, while some of the impacts
have negative influence on sustainability. Alanya is characterized by the 3S or
mass tourism, while Dubrovnik is a world heritage city, which is offering
cultural tourism. Notably, mass tourism in Alanya and cultural tourism in
Dubrovnik have different impacts on a place. Although Alanya has the
opportunity to diversify their tourism, mass tourism is still the main tourism
activity. Since mass tourism generally involves a large number of people
visiting a small area, it can change an area dramatically. What is interesting
about Dubrovnik is that its tourism has suffered a series of devastating events
throughout history, such as a major earthquake in 1979 and war between 1991 and
1995, which has left the local tourist economy in tatters. However, cultural
tourism in Dubrovnik has been proven as a more sustainable type of tourism than
the mass tourism in Alanya, which can be mostly seen through the environmental
impacts. In Dubrovnik, tourism is used to increase environmental awareness of
the local population, and moreover, the city has recognized the financial
values of cultural sites, which are used for the protection and preservation of
the heritage.While Dubrovnik is putting a lot of effort to preserve its culture
and heritage, Alanya’s main aim is to attract more tourists. For that reason,
Alanya is much more sensitive than Dubrovnik concerning the possible threats to
become an overdeveloped and overcrowded destination. The rich cultural and
historical heritage make Dubrovnik a special and unique tourist destination,
and therefore it is facing less risk than Alanya that it will be replaced by
the other destinations in the near future. What is important for both
communities is to be aware that positive consequences of tourism can arise only
if, and when tourism is carried out and developed in a sustainable way. In
order to achieve positive correlation between tourism and the local community,
an involvement of the local population is essential. In Dubrovnik, the local
population has been already involved in the implementation of the tourism, but
the potential is still not completely used and there is much more to be done.
On the other hand, the priority for Alanya perhaps should be a development of
the alternative types of tourism with the special foc...
