Comparative Analysis of the Rating of the Event, Entertainment, Sports and Excursion Offering by Tourists and Managers, and

the Development of Rural Tourism in Istria

Desimir Bokovi Ana Teak Dragoljub Amidi

Introduction
In the past decade, the traditional offering of sun and sea travels has undergone change, that is, it has been supplemented with a variety of other services and facilities that come together to present a single package. All this is a reflection of a series of social trends that are changing modern society, with the greatest impact coming from demographic change and the aging of populations in Europe and advanced countries around the world. Regardless of the growing importance of the natural resource base, which represents a specific competitive advantage of the Istria tourist destination, it is essential to develop other products and services of the offering such as sports and recreation, entertainment, culture, events, animation and excursions.

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Increasingly discerning tourists are driving the need for improving the tourism product and differentiating it through quality, which is becoming an ever more important dimension of marketing in tourism.
The main purpose oft his paper is to compare tourists opinion about manifestation, sports, entertainment, animation and excursion offer in Istria County tourism destination and with managerial opinion on tourists perception on this kind of offer.

Methodology - tourists
Conducted during July, August and September 2008 Sampling
Research cites: Pula and Medulin 31%, Pore 34%, Umag 16% and Rovinj 19% Languages provided: English, German, Italian, Russian, Slovenian, Slovak, Czech and Croatian 22 accommodation facilities

Total of 1,836 questionnaires were collected Questionnaire - 15 questions divided into four sections
1st section demography 2nd section ways of information collection 3rd section tourists preferences for different forms of entertainment, excursions, animation, sports and manifestations 4th section tourists satisfaction with the services

Methodology - managers
Conducted during September, October and November 2008 Total of 60 questionnaires were collected

Levels of tourism management

Company manager Hotel manager
Agency manager Restaurant manager Procurement Manager Tourist Board Manager Development Manager Other Total

Responders
Frequency
5 25
8 9 4 5 2 2 60

%
8,33 41,67
13,33 15,00 6,67 8,33 3,33 3,33 100,00

Comparison of ratings of the event and festival offering

Comparison of ratings of the entertainment offering

Comparison of ratings of the sports offering

Comparison of ratings of the excursion offering

Comparison of the ratings of the animation offering

Conclusion
There is a certain discrepancy between the attitudes of tourists and the opinions of tourist managers regarding how tourists perceive the event, entertainment, sport, excursion and animation offering. Tourists generally consider the offering of these additional services as being satisfactory. Tourist mangers believe that tourists are the most satisfied with the excursion offering, and least satisfied with the entertainment offering. Tourist managers are required to be innovative, but recently they have begun focusing heavily on rationalising operations through savings in labour, so, they fail to design new facilities and services for the tourism offering, resulting in a lacking offering

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The rural part of Istria possesses a relatively rich offering of diverse events and entertainment. Particularly popular are village events that can be a combination of eno-gastronomy, culture, sports and music. Tourists interested in seeing the countryside could be provided the opportunity of practicing specific types of sports in the outdoors, such as hiking, hunting, bicycling, cave exploring, paragliding and rock climbing. The offering of excursions to protected areas could be improved by including excursions to the Uka Nature Park. There should also be more excursions to rural villages in Istria. All of these offerings, once designed, should be accompanied with the appropriate promotional activities.