A contribution to the preservation and valorization of the traditional boat Lovran’s guc in the tourist offer of Lovran

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the initiative to preserve and valorize the maritime culture of North Adriatic in order to create an innovative tourist product integrated in the offer of maritime tourist destinations. Croatia’s fishermen’s and maritime heritage represent an important tourism resource. During the past few years it has become one of the most interesting topics of many projects and programmes of institutions along the Croatian coast. This paper deals with the possibilities of preservation using the traditional boat (Lovran’s guc) as an example. This traditionnal boat represents one of the resources of Lovran’s, Kvarner’s, and Croatia’s in general, maritime heritage. Based on interviews with local inhabitants and literature review, the authors conclude about the importance of lovranski guc. Creating a competitive tourist product in the contemporary tourist offer should be based on (cultural) heritage. Its preservation and valorisation in (and by) the local community, and in the sense of tourism, can be an impulse to create new initiatives meant for the contemporary tourist.

Keywords

• lovran’s guc
• cultural tourism
• entrepreneurship
• development