DOCTORAL DISSERTATION SUMMARY: The contribution of health tourism to economic sustainability of tourist destination

Sa？etak Purpose The first major restriction for economic sustainability of Croatian tourism is its seasonality. If looking at the seasonality through the Gini coefficient in all aspects of accommodation, Croatia has the biggest seasonality in the Mediterranean countries. By determining the percentage of seasonality against Croatia’s major competitors in hotels and similar accommodation units, then only Montenegro has larger percentage of dependence. The seasonality in period from 2013 to 2017 is not dropping but instead from June 1 to September 30 it brings very high 86% of yearly tourist revenue. Our competitors in the same period bring 43%(Malta), 51%(Spain), 59%(Cyprus) and 62%(Italy). The second major restriction of Croatian Tourism is huge disproportion between tourism revenue of Adriatic and Continental parts of the country. Even if the size percentage ratio is 56% versus 44% in favour of Continental part, if observed by the tourist accommodation revenue, the ratio is 95% versus 5% in favour of Adriatic part of Croatia. Further on, the availability of beds over 1 square km the ratio is 41.8 versus 3.5 beds in favour of Adriatic part. The restriction is connected with the rental model of development of low added value in Croatia, when growth of accommodation capacities in 6 years (2011-2016) is rising in favour of capacities of low added value 92% private accommodation took 82%, camps took 10% of total capacities while hotels took only 6%. All the mentioned restrictions are the cause for this research, how to decrease such a high seasonality which is not supporting economical sustainability of the tourist destination. This is the reason for decision to research the contribution of health tourism to economic sustainability of tourist destination. The principal purpose of this research is to point out the meaning and contribution of health tourism development in Croatia which as such is contributing to economic sustainability of the destination. Methodology Empirical investigation has been conducted in two directions. First is based on analyzing and processing secondary information which is presenting one very important segment of economic sustainability, addressed through seasonal effect, benchmarking analysis, availability of health tourism in Croatia, and especially through analysis of five indicators of tourist intensity and their influence on economic sustainability of destination through example of 97 cities and regions of Adriatic(72) and Continental(25) Croatia. Six variables have been analysed which were divided into two groups. First group