Author(s)

L. Petrić & L. Pranić

Abstract

Islands, as an outstanding nature’s work of art, have traditionally been popular tourist destinations. Considering their fragile environment and pressure that tourism development poses upon their economy, environment, and people in general, achieving sustainable tourism development is a major challenge they face. Yet, little research focusing on understanding small islands’ residents’ attitudes towards tourism and its effects have been conducted in the literature so far. This is especially the case with Croatian islands’ communities where tourism has been developed almost spontaneously and as such is taken for granted. To fill this gap, this study examines the residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in the town of Stari Grad on the island of Hvar. Keyword: island destinations, sustainable tourism development, community attitudes, Stari Grad-Hvar. 1 Introduction Most of the islands are small and uninhabited; many of them consist of several small communities counting in average not more than several hundred to several thousand inhabitants. Finally there are islands representing independent microstates of less than a million people (Mauritius, Malta, Bahamas etc.). However, regardless of the islands’ size, their economies share following characteristics: they are small scaled, isolated and weak, oriented traditionally to agriculture and fishing with a very few ones making exemptions, e.g. having more diversified economies. Hence, it is not surprising that most of the islands have embraced more important in an economic sense to an island destination than is usually the tourism as a rare and unique development opportunity. Tourism is generally

Keywords

island destinations, sustainable tourism development, community attitudes, Stari Grad-Hvar