Croatia 3.5.6

The concept of cultural tourism is not novel for the Croatian tourism industry as the first Strategy of Cultural Tourism was adopted in 2003 by the Ministry of Tourism. At that time, cultural tourism was not recognised as an independent tourism product and many efforts have been made in order to further explain the concept to the different stakeholders. In the following decade many changes have occurred in the development of cultural tourism in Croatia and additional efforts have been made on the national level either through the work of the Ministry of Tourism and Croatian Tourist Board, or further on the local level through the work of local governments, and also through the work of private and civil society initiatives. In 2013, with the adoption of the ‘Strategy of Tourism until 2020’ cultural tourism has been identified as an important field of the present and future tourism offer in Croatia, with creative tourism as one of its specific products. Following the adoption of the Strategy, the Ministry of Tourism initiated also the preparation of an ‘Action Plan on Cultural Tourism’ that was finalised in 2015 by the Institute for Tourism. Although many efforts have been made in this field, there is still ample space for further strategic development of this sector. Different programmes of the European Union have been used by local governments and local communities in order to renovate cultural heritage monuments and revitalise certain towns and regions through the cultural tourism offer (see chapter 3.1). The new ‘Strategy of Sustainable Tourism until 2030’ has been developed during 2022 and adopted in December the same year, where cultural tourism is taken as one of the important touristic ‘products’ where cultural heritage is taken as an important resource.