The Role of Cruising Tourism in Tourism Development of Split

The city of Split is increasingly showing its cruising valorisation opportunities thanks to its geocommunication position, harbour infrastructure, cultural and historic heritage and the diversity of its tourism supply. Cruising tourism, as a form of modern tourism receives characteristics of strong element of tourism development in certain tourist destination. City of Split, along with some other ports in the Mediterranean, base its development opportunity also on the development of cruising tourism. It is known that cruising tourism has a positive effect on economic growth, image and development of tourist destination, while disadvantages of cruising are its’ impact on local residents, stationary tourists and environment. The increase in both the number of cruise liner arrivals and tourists visiting a particular port creates the presumptions for the development of special forms of tourism supply and for its valorisation outside the main tourist season. Investing in new reception facilities in port aquatorium of the city of Split creates new possibilities for acceptance of ships with greater capacity. This creates new opportunities for increasing of cruise ships arrivals and increasing of tourist visits of Split tourist destination. Joint actions of local authorities and all operators of tourism offer can contribute so that Split tourist destination becomes recognizable as an international destination of cruising tourism. The main goal of this paper is to show the impact of cruising tourism on the improvement of brand image of Split and impact on prolongation of tourism season of Split tourist destination. This paper particularly evaluates the contribution and impact of cruise tourism in the overall development of tourism and the positive economic effects of tourism on the city of Split