Projected Image of a Tourist Route: The Case of Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia
摘要
The purpose of tourist routes and itineraries is to form an attraction that coherently brings together various resources spread across a territory. Creating tourist routes allows for economic growth in the area and subsequently enriches the local community. In this way, it is a process where it is important to connect different types of attractions, making the route interesting, appealing, and easily available to visitors. This work depends on the actions of the various agents present in the territory of the route, including destination management organisations, public entities, and the various companies in the tourist industry, especially accommodation, restaurants, and animation. The involvement of several agents with different objectives and points of view can be a considerable obstacle to the formation of an optimised image of a route. The variety of tourist resources, which offer various options for route construction, will intensify this challenge, particularly in regions with diverse attractions like nature and culture. The way the image is formed and transmitted will decisively influence the type of tourists that will be attracted and their expectations. Therefore, it is very relevant to study tourist routes from the perspective of the tourist offer through the communication that is issued online to understand whether the image of a coherent and integrated route is clear and which attributes are highlighted. The present study analyses the tourist routes available in Plitvice Lakes National Park, an area classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. In methodological terms, the various entities that are involved in the tourist operation and promotion of the tourist destination were identified, including tourist boards, animation companies, accommodation, and restaurants. After that, their official websites were registered. For each of them, the content analysis technique was applied, seeking to identify references at the level of seven main categories: route references, territorial, factual, cultural, sensorial, aesthetics, and sustainability. Seventy-one websites were analysed, and 498 references were extracted. The results obtained demonstrate, firstly, a small number of direct references that promote a sense of route. It was also observed that practically half of the references are concentrated in the territorial and factual categories. Finally, common and divergent aspects of the image projected by the different groups of entities present at the destination were considered and investigated. The conclusions show that it is necessary to increase more effective communication to optimise the image of this territory as a route.