Özet:

Every county seeks to foster development of their rural areas through implementation of various measures, and rural tourism has lately been identified as one of economic activities with successful development in rural areas. What is more, national measures for development of rural tourism are oriented towards sustainability component, which means that on the path of that development one should also take into account balanced use of all available natural, social, and economic resources. This raises the question whether it is possible to calculate which county is more successful in implementing rural tourism measures, and which variables should be monitored in order to prove that. Could monitoring of only the number of registered rural tourist facilities, and number of visitors be sufficient, or is successful development of rural tourism also influenced by significant events taking place in some county, followed by protected natural heritage, protected plant species, and numerous other variables. The answer to this question could be derived from the calculation of success index of rural tourism development in Koprivnica-Križevci County, which could indicate whether the analysed county was more successful in terms of rural tourism measures it has so far implemented, compared to the other counties in the Republic of Croatia. In order to calculate the index mentioned above, one should find qualitative data that are comparable on county and national level. By means of using different databases it was possible to find 5 natural, 6 social, and 25 economic variables that are comparable on the level of Koprivnica-Križevci County, and the Republic of Croatia. Obtained index 122,75 indicates that Koprivnica-Križevci County is 22,75% more successful in implementing rural tourism measures, in comparison with other counties in Croatia, and that this was primarily influenced by natural and social variables, which indicates that future development measures should be oriented towards economic variables and all other variables with index value lower than 100.

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