Applying the modified SWOT–AHP method to the tourism of Gornje Međimurje

The development of tourism in rural areas supports economic development and growth of these areas. The prerequisite of successful development is the existence of strategic priorities in tourism. The Gornje Meimurje area has the characteristics of a rural region which generates recognizable successes in development of an authentic touristic attraction. Guidelines specified by the official Tourism Development Strategy (Ministry of Tourism, 2003) can serve as possible strategic orientations/options in that respect. In particular, the guidelines that refer to Central Croatia include: orientations toward rural tourism, health tourism, sport tourism, and congress tourism. This paper aims to contribute to the formulation of future tourist orientation of this region by the evaluation of strategic alternatives using the combined SWOT-AHP (short for Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats and Analytical Hierarchical Process) method. In this paper we propose a modified version of the method, so that the absolute values of SWOT factors coefficients are used as criteria previously specified by AHP, but with a different procedure of evaluating (strategic) alternatives. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for tourism were described, which was based on judgments of experts; the appropriate weight was given to SWOT groups and factors using the AHP method. The relevance of potential strategic alternatives was determined with regards to global values of elements (factors) contained in SWOT groups, while also taking into consideration negative contributions of Weaknesses and Threats to the strategic situation. Thus, the strategic priorities for tourism development of Gornje Meimurje were obtained and the option of rural tourism was estimated as being most attractive.