Sustainable Tourism Development in Croatia: A Last Decade Prisma-Compliant Systematic Literature Review

The term sustainable tourism has been quite commonly used in the last decade. It refers to considering the current as well as future economic, social and environmental impacts, simultaneously addressing the needs of tourists, the tourism industry, the environment and the national economy. The overarching goal of this article is to identify, present and analyse published studies regarding sustainable tourism development in the Republic of Croatia, to present their findings and to draw conclusions about sustainable tourism development in Croatia and the challenges faced. To achieve this goal, a systematic review according to the PRISMA statement guidelines with stringent selection criteria to include relevant studies on sustainable tourism development in Croatia has been conducted. The authors have surveyed the Scopus scientific database with the keywords “SUSTAINABILITY“, “TOURISM”, “DEVELOPMENT” and “CROATIA”. The PRISMA method has led to a total of 53 papers. Thereafter, a manual survey of these studies followed, which eventually resulted in 17 relevant papers regarding sustainable tourism development in Croatia in the last decade (i.e., 2012 to 2022). Major findings reveal that the implementation of sustainable tourism practices and sustainable tourism development can potentially bring significant advantages to the Croatian economy. The core purpose of this paper is to raise awareness among academic members, researchers, analysts and practitioners regarding the importance of sustainable tourism development in Croatia.