Local/Regional Economic Development in South ... - Value Chains

128 Dalmatian coast vacation areas in Croatia. The city of
Neum lies on the approx. 20-kilometer strip of Adriatic
coastline that offers Bosnia and Herzegovina access to the
Mediterranean Sea and currently serves above all nationals
and guests from Eastern Europe as an inexpensive summer
destination. In 1981, an appearance of Mary turned
the small village of Medjugorje into a popular pilgrimage
site with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over
the world each year.
Most accommodations are also found at the locations
mentioned above. However, there is still a lack of capacities
and products that would allow the rural population
to create income from increased tourism. Despite positive
developments in recent years, the deficits in the tourism
sector are still apparent:
•
•
•
Poor quality of the accommodations and services
Poorly equipped tourism institutions (associations)
Lack of competency (tourism training in ex-Yugoslavia
is concentrated above all on the Croatian coast)
The advisory measures of the EDEP Program aim to support
tourism development in the region, beginning with
a few hot spots and moving toward the development of
Herzegovina as a destination. The partner is the Tourism
Association of the Canton of Herzegovina-Neretva with
its branches in the region.
Project implementation
According to the definition of Michael Porter, a cluster is a
regionally concentrated group of firms focused on certain
sectors, branches, and products, with a high density of inter-firm
interactions. For the tourism sector, such a cluster
is called a destination. Destinations, like other economic
sectors, face cutthroat global competition: guests must be
won over and over again, new destinations are crowding
into the market, capacities are being expanded around the
world. The destinations therefore face the need to continually
increase their marketing.
In order to be able to survive in this environment, destinations
require professional management, which must be
provided by structures (tourism associations, destination
management companies – DMC) legitimized by various
actors (hoteliers, incoming agencies, municipal/regional
administrations, etc.).
A potential analysis in 2003 identified various regions that
had the potential to become a destination. Besides the city
of Sarajevo, this was above all the region around Mostar,
which
• already gained some experience with tourism before
the war,
• is now again a favorite excursion destination of tourists
on the Croatian Adriatic coast,
•
•
is internationally famous for the bridges of Mostar,
which are UNESCO Heritage Sites and attract a corresponding
clientele (study trips),
has a central tourism association with six branches in
the region (hot spots).
Because there are no other regional tourism institutions
and organizations besides the regional tourism association
(e. g. branch associations of service providers such as hotels
and restaurants), one of the central issues of the project
was to strengthen cantonal tourism. The association
has a structure similar to that of the chambers, in which
the firms that profit from tourism, in the broadest sense
of the word, are obliged to be members and must pay
corresponding dues. There is also an additional contribution
that is dependent on the respective number of guests.
The founding principles of this model correspond to the
Austrian approach to financing tourism development and
marketing. The legal framework conditions thus largely
guarantee financing for the association and its tasks; however,
the members’ willingness to pay is still not very great,
and the government tax inspection system does not have
the capacity to ensure correct payment by members.
The policy of the association is therefore to use professional
services to convince members of the necessity of
paying their dues. Thus, in the course of the advisory services,
the three activity areas of internal organization/administration,
marketing, and product development were
identified as the key areas of intervention with the following
needs:
• Building methodological competency (workshop
moderation, strategy development, project management,
etc.)
• Building technical competency (skills in the areas of
marketing, public relations, product development,
service quality, languages, etc.)
•
Improvement of internal communication (head office
– branches) and team-building processes (topic-related
working groups)
The following overview illustrates the desired organizational
structure of the association and clearly shows the
important function of the branch offices, which will be
responsible, above all in their respective environments, for
communication with the important tourism-development
partners (municipalities, firms, associations, projects) and
the launching of local initiatives to develop tourism products.
However, the branches should not act in isolation,
but should address topics of common concern in working
groups (e. g. topic of water sports/rafting in the canton:
Which international standards apply today? Which infrastructure
must be created?). The central association in Mostar
will assume a mainly coordinating role and will offer
support by providing the required know-how).