so obvious because tourists’ flows are relatively week; they are in a process of expansion and
tend to reach pre-war levels in a few years. At that moment it will be obvious that tourists
reach Croatia mainly using road transport that at the same time devastates nature and for all
participants is not a safe way of travelling at all.
On a short-term level transport policy is focused to build up road infrastructure that
will lead to easier transport accessibility of the country and probably to higher safety level on
Croatian roads. On the long -term level the aim of modernization of Croatian transport system
should be the stimulation of other ecologically more acceptable modes of transport such as
railway (high-speed trains), maritime transport and in some circumstances even air transport,
in order to avoid destruction of the main Croatian tourism advantage - the preserved nature.
4.2. Determinates for Defining a Concept of Sustainable Development of Adriatic
Region
The Adriatic region consists in heterogeneous group of countries. The difference
between countries is shown in level of economy development-from highly developed Italy,
middle developed Slovenia to modest developed Croatia, specially Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Albania and Montenegro.
Besides that the national economy structure is very different from one country to the
other- from developed tourism countries like Italy and Croatia, to modest developed tourism
countries like Slovenia, and modest developed other countries in the Region. Among tourism
countries themselves there are considerable differences- Italy and Slovenia are at the same
time emitive and receptive countries, while Croatia is a typical receptive tourism destination.
In the Adriatic region as a whole, and in each country, the process of economy
development was mainly harmonised with the process of transport development. This has led
to differences in transport systems that cannot be neglected.
Before defining a concept of sustainable development, the characteristics of transport
and tourism, as well as their interdependence, have to be analysed. The criteria of
optimisation have to be defined too. Each of the country in the Region has, according to its
comparative advantages, a need to give priority to economic activity that can be opposite to
other countries development aims.
Therefore, after defining a national concept of sustainable development in the field of
transport and tourism, coordination on regional level is necessary. In this optimisation
process, according to objective criteria, some other priorities (transport routes, tourism objects
location, kinds of tourism offer) for the Region as a whole may arise. They have to be taken
into consideration in a concept of sustainable development according to safety and ecology
standards.
The basic question of the Region development is: in one heterogeneous region such as
the Adriatic region, how to reach a certain level of homogenous, which will primarily lead to
transport, and tourism development? In this context some measures that will as a consequence
have the unification of transport parameters are:
- built up of transport infrastructure on relations covered by Pan European
network of traffic corridors;
- harmonisation of priorities and dynamics of transport infrastructure built up
in the Region;
- definition of state strategy transport development taking into consideration
the aims of regional development, specially the role of transport in tourism;
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