Diffuse and integrated hotels as innovative form of accomodation: review of the concept and its implementation in Croatia

This paper examines concept and examples of diffuse and integrated hotels as a new and innovative form of accommodation introduced to Croatian tourism practice in 2014. Diffuse hotel as a term and concept was originally initiated in Italy as a form of hospitality oriented on accommodation facilities distributed in different buildings but all located in the same village/town with a common reception hall, common room for socializing and other tourist facilities. Purpose – to provide overview of the main principles of diffuse hotels and their potential benefits and to conduct analysis and comparison between goals targeted at the Croatian policy-making level and application of proposed models through (so far) registered diffuse and integrated hotels in Croatia. Methodology – Desk research of available literature, relevant websites and examples was performed and in order to analyse current situation regarding management practices and models of existing Croatian diffused/integrated hotels, case study method was used, based on available secondary qualitative and quantitative data. Findings – Results show significant discrepancy between the initial idea and aims of diffuse and integrated hotels and the actual implementation in Croatian tourism practice in terms of number and management characteristics of (currently) registered diffuse and integrated hotels. Contribution – This paper provides systematic review of the main characteristics, management practices and organizational forms related to the diffuse and integrated hotels with emphasis on their benefits in terms of sustainable tourism and local community development. Analysis provided in this paper gives new insights on the important differences between planned positive changes intended by the introduction of diffuse and integrated hotel models in Croatian practice and their recognition and interpretation in real tourism sector.