Izidora MARKOVI? VUKADIN, Institute for tourism, Croatia
Damir KREŠIC, Institute for tourism, Croatia
Matina GJURASIC, Institute for tourism, Croatia
The unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 has placed the tourism sector in an unfavourable position. It has transformed the reality of global tourism market, ending up with unprecedented scenario within the tourism sector, namely the scenario of “undertourism” or dramatic and rapid decrease of tourism inflows in some of the most visited tourism destinations worldwide. Numerous scientific papers and informal academic discussions indicate that tourism is currently at the turning point facing a crossroad between a bleak scenario of an unsustainable future manifested as overtourism and more desirable scenario of sustainable tourism development (Nepal, 2020; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2021; Chang et al, 2020).
Therefore, it is important for destination to seize the opportunity and use COVID-19 crisis as a chance for positive tourism transformation. According to the literature the positive tourism transformation (Cheer, 2020) can be summed up in two basic perspectives: (1) reducing the number of tourists, and (2) reinventing tourism trough values and resilience shift. This case study analyses UNESCO World Heritage site Dubrovnik as a perfect case study destination which has been burdened with overtourism in the pre-pandemic time (2019) (Capocchi et al, 2019; Panayiotopoulos & Pisano,2019;), gone through the period of undertourism during 2020 while in 2021 it is focused on moderate tourism with quality destination products.
Therefore, this paper gives an insight into features of tourism in Dubrovnik in the pre pandemic, pandemic, and post pandemic era and analyse possible transformation scenarios of new tourism development paradigm based on attitudes of local population (survey) and stakeholders involved in management of the destination (interviews). Moreover, this paper present recent literature on tourism development during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide a systematic overview of recent directions for tourism transformation.
Mots clés : Covid 19|transformation|Dubrovnik|UNESCO|overtourism
A104740IM