The Prospects of Rural Tourism Development in the Continental Touristic Region of Croatia: A Survey Conducted among Younger and more Educated Responders

The paper represents a product of mentor- graduate student cooperation, developed at the graduate study of Business Economics, major Tourism. Theoretical part of the paper addresses rural tourism and its most interesting sub- categories. It also discusses which part of Continental Croatia has the most potential for development of rural tourism. The destinations and types of tourism are listed that exist in this area but also have room for improvement and further development. The goal is to prolongue the season and not only focus on the coastal part of Croatia, following the examples of neighboring countries. The final goal of the research is to examine the behavior and opinion that participants have about Croatian tourism, what are their preferences when it comes to the choice of destination, on what grounds, how much are they familiar with rural tourism offer, and whether they think that further development would be crucial for rural tourism improvement. The research was conducted through a questionnaire on 203 respondents residing in the Republic of Croatia