Dubrovnik As A Cruise Destination (Current trends and development strategies)

Attractive cultural, historical and natural resources, development of the tourist and port infrastructure and good geographic position are the advantages of Dubrovnik as a cruise destination. Today, Dubrovnik is the fift h transit port on the Mediterranean, and the essential part on the itineraries of cruise companies. The main characteristic of cruise tourism in Dubrovnik is its seasonality. Large daily concentration of passengers on a relatively limited urban area mostly in the six-month period (May-October) creates problems that are extremely complex. This situation brings forward the issue of the long-term development strategy of Dubrovnik as a cruise destination in the context of global trends and sustainable development. The paper analyses changes in the monthly, weekly and daily dynamics of passenger and ship calls, the time of calls, average stays in the port, etc. in Dubrovnik in the period 2013-2017. It also analyses the trends on the world cruise market and suggests a model of developing Dubrovnik as a cruise destination. The results point to positive and negative trends, and to the need of addressing existing problems of managing demand and destination products. In order to take advantage of opportunities and minimalize the threats, Dubrovnik should be developed as a cruise centre, i.e. as a transit and home port, with the implementation of a differentiation strategy. Such a development requires the proactive action of all stakeholders directly and indirectly involved in cruise tourism, further investment in port and city infrastructure and superstructure, improvement of tourism offer, improvement of traffic accessibility as well as of understanding by the citizens. The development of Dubrovnik as a home port would be useful as a business orientation for the port and for Dubrovnik tourism.