PROPOSING THE MODEL FOR MEASURING COMPETITIVENESS OF CROATIAN TOURISM AND HOTEL INDUSTRY

The main objective of this paper is to examine the competitive position of Croatian tourism in relation to the selected countries, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Turkey and Portugal. Besides tourism, the study examines the hotel industry as well, because of its significant contribution to overall competitiveness of the tourist destination. The research includes the most important indicators specific to the hotel industry: the average daily room rate (ADR), revenue per available room (RevPAR) and occupancy. Comparative analysis indicates that the Croatian results in all three categories are below the average for the group and that it ranks last place shared with Portugal. The paper proposes a new way of measuring the level of competitiveness of tourism by determining the overall index drawn up on the basis of seventeen indicators of selected tourist destinations. According to this model, Croatia is ranked in fifth place, ahead of Turkey and Portugal, but behind other countries with which it competes in attracting tourism demand. The results suggest the need for investments in order to increase the competitiveness of tourism, both at macro and micro level.