Croatian Tourism Sector and Crisis Management - A Case Study Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Tourism is an extremely important economic sector for the Republic of Croatia and an important component of certain economic and social activities, such as transport and business of travel agencies, trade, catering, agriculture, and numerous service activities. Many Croatian citizens are directly, indirectly, or partially employed in the said sectors. Many depend on it – from individuals, through various business entities and tourist destinations, to the state itself which generates almost 20 percent of the annual state budget revenue from tourism. Given the multilevel and multifunctional importance of tourism, it is important to research how it is organized for emergencies that can cause significant disruptions in the operation and revenue generation. The goal of this paper is to analyze how and how successfully the tourism sector coped with the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting crisis, what crisis management mechanisms were developed and how they were used during 2020