Tourism Urbanization in Croatia. The Cases of Poreč in Istria and Makarska in Dalmatia

Introduction

Croatia is one of the fastest developing tourism economies in the world, with tourism on average contributing more than 20% to the annual national budget. ^[1] During socialism, Croatia had primarily relied on its abundant natural and cultural resources to attract tourists. ^[2] In 2014, it still used the marketing slogan ‘The Mediterranean as it once was’—part of international tourism promotion since 2001—emphasizing how Croatia represented the last part of the Mediterranean coast not to have been layered in concrete, covered in tourist apartments, or environmentally compromised for future generations. ^[3]

However, these general assumptions translated varyingly into different local realities. Our case studies Poreč and Makarska allow us to embed the study in the comparative research design. ^[4] While Makarska in Dalmatia, on Croatia’s southern coast, and Poreč in Istria on the northern Croatian Adriatic, are two very similar cities where we would expect similar tourism urbanization patterns, they differ with regard to administrative capacities and the development strategies they adopted during the transition from state socialism. We will argue that this difference between the two cities led to divergent paths in tourism urbanization.

In the following, we show how the two small, tourism-dependent towns of Poreč and Makarska were affected differently by the systemic changes after 1990 in terms of tourism urbanization. Both towns have seen similar growth rates, and have less than 20,000 inhabitants (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Number of inhabitants of Makarska and Poreč between 1948 and 2011.

Source: Croatian Bureau of Statistics, Population Census 2011, https://www.dzs.hr/Eng/censuses/census2011/censuslogo.htm.

Moreover, the two cities have largely relied on a similar pattern of foreign visitors. During socialism, the Makarska area attracted predominantly German, Czech, Slovak and Austrian tourists, while tourists from Bosnia and Herzegovina made up the majority of Yugoslav domestic visitors. ^[5] The Poreč area relied on Italian, Austrian and German visitors, while Slovenes dominated among the Yugoslav domestic visitors. ^[6] Both towns developed into spatially well-planned, regional tourism centres.

Following the systemic changes—and war—of the 1990s, the pattern of visitors remained largely unchanged, with the exception of an increase in the number of guests from Poland and the Scandinavian countries in Makarska. ^[7] However, Makarska became somewhat of a synonym for what has come to be known as apartmanizacija (apartmentization), i.e. the usurpation of valuable coastal space through the construction of privately-owned summer accommodation, while Poreč has remained a destination where urbanization has mostly reflected best practices in spatial planning and tourism. ^[8]

As one of the world’s most lucrative economic sectors, tourism has an important transformative effect on space as a limited resource. ^[9] Building on existing literature, we examine how two different socio-economic and political systems—socialism and the market economy—have influenced tourism urbanization on the Croatian Adriatic coast.

After the Croatian parliament proclaimed the independence of Croatia from Yugoslavia on 25 July 1991, it adopted a set of new laws that were to ensure the country’s transition to a market economy. During socialism, almost all companies had been socially owned. The process of privatization that unfolded after 1991 turned part of socially-owned property into state-owned property. Among the state-owned enterprises established at this time were the postal service, the state forest management company, and the state railways. The remaining share of socially-owned property was gradually privatized; this included hotels and tourism enterprises, albeit not the land belonging to tourism enterprises. On the whole, the process of introducing new legislation was relatively slow, and laws that had been valid in socialist Croatia continued to apply until new laws replaced them.

To be sure, given that the introduction of the market economy took place in parallel to the war effort, new legislation allowing private investment and ownership was brought in relatively fast. This was the case, for example, with the Physical Planning Act adopted in 1994. The legislative process was far from smooth, however. The resulting laws were not harmonized across policy areas and sometimes provided contradictory solutions. In the case of the Physical Planning Act, it indeed allowed for the private ownership of tourism enterprises and physical infrastructure, but the land that facilities and infrastructure were built on was not privatized and therefore was caught in a legislative limbo with regard to ownership status.

In order to analyse the relationship between spatial planning and tourism urbanization across two socio-economic and political systems, we will focus on the baseline framework, developmental goals, and the relevant legislation established by each of the systems. We compare the development from socialism to a market economy in the cases of Poreč and Makarska based on standardized tourism urbanization indicators derived from the number of tourists, overnight stays, inhabitants, the number of beds, the number and type of tourism facilities, and the extent of planned tourism zones. We first give an overview of the scholarly literature, tourism development plans, spatial planning and the consumption of space in socialist Croatia between 1945 and 1990, with a special focus on our local cases of Makarska and Poreč. We then contrast tourism urbanization in socialism with the subsequent quarter of a century of development under the conditions of a market economy (1991 to 2017). As we will show, Makarska and Poreč have seen different outcomes in this transitional process.

Tourism Urbanization as a Transformative Power

Tourism has important transformative effects on space as a limited resource, which differ across countries and regions, but also across local units of self-governance. ^[10] Few works have focused on the role of the political system on tourism development in (transitional) market economies. ^[11] Yugoslav tourism, scholars generally agree, represented a specific case among the state socialist countries. ^[12] After the split with Moscow in 1948, Yugoslav particularism was reflected in a number of socio-economic policies and sectors, and tourism was among them. The expulsion from the Cominform made Yugoslavia turn towards the West: not only did Yugoslavia accept Western mass tourism, but it used tourism to give Yugoslav socialism a face towards the West. Such policies strongly influenced tourism planning and development. ^[13]

The resulting differences in tourism urbanization across state socialist countries have been explored in detail in a comparison of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. While the Bulgarian Black Sea coastal environment suffered from aggressive and megalomanic urbanization efforts during socialist tourism development, the Yugoslav coast remained largely preserved. ^[14] Suggesting that Yugoslav socialism was not a completely isolated case of sustainable socialist tourism, Winson has argued that Cuban socialism, too, can be credited with having developed relatively sustainable eco-tourism. ^[15] Important contributions to recent literature on tourism development have been made by scholars who have studied the difficulties that the former state socialist economies in eastern Europe faced in preserving their country’s natural and cultural heritage. ^[16]

In Yugoslav scholarly literature, the importance of spatial planning for the safeguarding of space as a limited and finite resource was recognized early. In the 1950s and 1960s, spatial programmes and plans for the development of tourism on the Yugoslav Adriatic coast evolved; by the end of the 1970s, they encompassed the entire coastline. ^[17] By then, literature that discussed the importance of developing spatial plans to ensure long-term tourism sustainability had grown significantly, too. Yugoslav scholars from such diverse fields as architecture, spatial planning, economics, art history, cultural heritage, and agriculture already in the 1960s sought to harmonize differing attitudes towards tourism development and to support tourism planning across disciplines. They focused on the importance of developing spatial plans for tourism areas, ^[18] spatial planning in protected areas, ^[19] regional aspects of tourism planning, ^[20] infrastructure in connection with the Adriatic Highway, ^[21] and on harmonizing tourism growth with agriculture. ^[22] Art historians Eugen Franković ^[23] and Milan Prelog ^[24] wrote about the consequences of tourism urbanization on the Yugoslav Adriatic coast and particularly emphasized the need to use cultural heritage and the landscape sustainably. In the 1960s, international expertise in the field was broadly accepted, but tourism development in Croatia— and more generally Yugoslavia—was mostly discussed by domestic experts. ^[25]

Renowned architect and urbanist Ante Marinović-Uzelac proposed criteria for more realistic planning. In addition, his work strongly influenced the planning of protected nature zones. ^[26] At the end of the 1980s, Dragutin Alfier explored the causes and consequences of the excessive increase in weekend homes in Yugoslavia. ^[27] Around the same time, Antun Kobašić and Stevan Stanković focused on economic aspects of tourism development and demand. ^[28] They analysed the stages of tourism development in Yugoslavia, patterns of demand, and seasonality. Stanković particularly emphasized regional specificities in his assessment of tourism development across the Yugoslav republics.

More recently, Hannes Grandits and Karin Taylor edited a collected volume, Yugoslavia’s Sunny Side, which encompasses historically informed studies on spatial planning as well as economic, political and social aspects of tourism development in socialist Yugoslavia, while Elke Beyer et al. and Iris Meder have provided valuable insights into the architectural specificities of Yugoslav socialist seaside tourism. ^[29]

Generally, the challenges that tourism development represents for the sustainable use of land as a limited resource in market economies remain relatively understudied. The strengths and weaknesses of contemporary tourism in Croatia are no exception. Dubravko Mihaljek has explored to what extent accession to the EU has represented a blessing or a curse for Croatian tourism development. ^[30] Tourism’s complex relationship with the environment, the labour market, and the wars of the 1990s in Croatia were addressed at the conference ‘Myths of Tourism’ in Zadar in 2013. ^[31] While the role of public administration and political institutions in tourism and urbanization during both the socialist and the market economies has been explored for the cases of Croatia and Montenegro, ^[32] scholars have so far paid no attention to how the two successive socio-economic and political systems affected tourism urbanization on the city level. This is precisely what we intend to do in this comparative study.

Tourism Urbanization in Socialist Yugoslavia

Tourism Urbanization and the Market Economy. The ‘Mediterranean As It Once Was’ vs Apartmanizacija

At the beginning of the 1990s, socialist Yugoslavia ceased to exist, and its successor republics adopted a market economy and democracy. In 1991, when the conditions for economic and political transition were created, the Croatian War of Independence began and lasted until 1995. War damage and destruction further aggravated the effects of deindustrialization, privatization, liberalization, and the transition to capitalism and a democratic system. ^[56] During the war, the number of tourist arrivals plunged by 69% and the number of overnight stays decreased by 75%—essentially returning tourism statistics to the level of the 1960s. ^[57]

Destinations such as Dubrovnik and Kupari were on the first line of conflict, but the number of visitors was also decimated in many other tourist destinations, such as Zadar, Šibenik, Split, the island of Hvar, and also Makarska. Even though Istria was not directly in an area of fighting, tourism numbers dropped there as well. ^[58] During the war, 54% of Croatian territory became a conflict zone and 24% was under occupation. ^[59] Many residential areas were destroyed in regions where the conflict took place and in 1992, 800,000 refugees left their homes. As they fled from the war-afflicted areas, numerous hotels, both in Dalmatia and Istria, were used to temporarily house these refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The housing of refugees in hotels resulted in damages and wear which considerably reduced the value of these hotels in the privatization process. ^[60] In 2000, 17,000 refugees still lived in hotels along the Croatian Adriatic. ^[61] During this period, tourists from Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the United Kingdom turned to other destinations, resulting in an irreversible loss for Croatian tourism. However, not least as a result of the hardships in other economic sectors and due to the lasting, favourable potential for tourism, almost all cities and municipalities in the newly independent Croatia, especially along the Adriatic coast, (re-)adopted tourism as one of their development goals. ^[62]

During the transition to a market economy, the coastal area witnessed accelerated urbanization that was dominated by the illegal construction of privately-owned summer homes. While in socialism the goals of tourism had been integrated with and adapted to broader social and development goals, now tourism was integrated into global markets and adapted to global tourism trends. Facilities previously in social ownership were turned into private property. However, while the privatization process regulated the private ownership of tourism buildings, it did not do the same with regard to the land on which they were built, an issue that has remained unresolved to this day. Investments in tourism, whether in new facilities or the existing ones, became profit-oriented. To be sure, the socialist authorities had pursued profit, too, but with social ownership in place no reason had existed to thwart the public interest in order to pursue a private, vested one. Now, private interest clearly was prioritized over public concerns, leading to profit-oriented construction that lacked public content or even the necessary infrastructure.

Attracting foreign currency, already an objective in Yugoslavia, now came to strongly influence legislation. The existing strong spatial planning traditions and expertise inherited from socialism initially provided restrictions on the use of land as a limited resource. However, frequent legislative changes aimed at attracting investors dismantled the protective role of these traditions. Between 1994 and 2017, more than a dozen legislative acts were adopted in the field of spatial planning. ^[63]

The above-mentioned Physical Planning Act (Zakon o prostornom uređenju) was adopted in 1994 and served as the initial framework for spatial planning and tourism development in the newly introduced market economy. However, by 2004 the text of this law had been changed four times, leading to legal insecurity regarding its implementation. The Physical Planning and Building Act (Zakon o prostornom uređenju i gradnji) of 2007 was a fresh attempt to regulate the use of land for tourism and other sectors and integrated spatial planning and the building sector. However, it suffered from the same ailment as the Physical Planning Act, having been amended six times.

As the demand for tourism and land urbanization increased, legislative solutions became more and more oriented towards investors. Returns on hotel investment in tourism are relatively low and investments require several years to pay off. However, the possibility to develop apartments and villas for individual ownership (with the option of renting them out) within tourism zones makes urbanization much more profitable. While the 2007 Physical Planning and Building Act and its amendments until 2011 prohibited the sale of residential units within tourism zones, the 2011 amendment to the Act finally granted this concession to investors. The Law on Golf Terrains (Zakon o igralištima za golf) of 2008 allowed apartments to be built within golfing areas and has attempted to directly target forest areas that enjoy strong legal protection against land urbanization. ^[64]

Administration in the newly established, war-torn country was often not up to the challenges that came with transition, despite existing long-term practices. Planners and architects in charge of developing spatial plans, as well as the local political officials responsible for their implementation, began changing their attitudes towards the use of space as they stopped operating within the public administration apparatus and became market actors. A suitable taxation system aimed at filling local budgets was largely missing—reflecting negatively on the development of communal infrastructure and public spaces. One source of funding for the development of the later is the paušal, the annual tax charged per tourist bed, determined by the municipalities themselves. However, most have refrained from raising this tax to more than 50 euros per year. While the same taxation system applied during socialism, taxes returned from the hotels provided more funding for public facilities. Given that the amount of private accommodation rose sharply and owners are simultaneously voters, the political survival of the local political elites was contingent on low taxation. On the whole, the suboptimal functioning of the state administration combined with the numerous social, political, economic and cultural changes brought about by transition led to the slower implementation of spatial plans and consequently to the neglect of public and long-term interests in the use of space. ^[65]

While there is no data on the increase of illegal construction for the first post-socialist decade, the ministry in charge of spatial planning in 2013 estimated the number of illegal buildings at 350,000. ^[66] Illegal construction was particularly widespread in the coastal area due to its valuable natural resources and the potential for tourism, real estate development, and profit. Europe-wide growth in demand for leisure activities boosted the tourism sector in Croatia between 2007 and 2017, while at the same time ensuring much-needed revenue. However, despite good financial results, spatial planning experts and the public have expressed dissatisfaction with the negative effects of the tourism boom—linear coastal urbanization dominated by privately-owned, often illegally constructed apartments, an insufficient number of pedestrian zones and parks, parking places, public areas, and a general lack of communal infrastructure.

When it comes to the structure of accommodation units, private accommodation has dwarfed all other types of accommodation. While the number of hotels has remained more or less constant, the number of private accommodation units exploded (Figure 2). In 1980, there were 113,177 beds in hotels and aparthotels, which by 2017 had risen to 132,576 units. Simultaneously, the number of accommodation units in private houses rose by 278%—from 196,034 in 1980 to 741,509 in 2017, i.e. from constituting a third of total accommodation in 1980, private accommodation rose to amount to more than half in 2017. We take this as an indicator of the changes that have marked tourism urbanization as a consequence of the introduction of a market economy.

Figure 2

Tourism beds by type in Croatia, 1980 to 2017. Source: Ministarstvo turizma, Turizam u brojkama 2017., 14, no. 1 (2018), https://mint.gov.hr/UserDocsImages/AA_2018_c-dokumenti/180608_HTZTUBHR_2017.PDF.

At the same time, the population of the Adriatic coast has seen an inverse development. The number of inhabitants has decreased slowly, dipping 1% between 2001 and 2011, while the number of tourist beds has continued to increase—in the same decade by 30% (Table 4). ^[67]

In a recent critique of how public assets have been managed in Makarska, Boris Stamenić has suggested that the relentless, illegal urbanization after the transition to a market economy has been one of the main reasons why the size of the urbanized areas has increased so drastically in comparison to the 1950s—when Makarska was a small fishing village concentrated around the old town core. Private housing units (both legal and illegal) along the coast were built extensively from 1991 onwards for the seasonal renting of rooms and apartments to tourists. Even when the quadruple increase in the number of inhabitants between the 1950s and 2010s is taken into account, apartmentization remains the most important explanation for the accelerated urbanization of the Makarska riviera. ^[68] The business sector in the Makarska area and institutions in charge of spatial planning agree that on the one hand the area is characterized by the extensive development of private summer homes and apartments built for the tourism market. On the other hand, Makarska continues to lack additional hospitality facilities, such as congress centres, leisure areas, and cultural centres. ^[69]

In comparison, Poreč has successfully modernized and increased not only the number of hotels, but also the quality of its tourism offer. Despite a tendency towards ‘apartmentization’, Poreč has ensured the protection of its space, recognizing it as the area’s most important resource. In 2017, Poreč featured more tourist beds than Makarska, but Makarska surpassed Poreč in the number of beds in private apartments, reaching 73% of total capacity (13,770), while in Poreč only 37%, or 10,573 tourist beds, were in private accommodation. ^[70]

In Makarska, in the aftermath of the war, municipal planning resources were unable to hold back the surge in illegal construction. Moreover, new spatial plans allowed an increase in urbanized, residential areas and the expansion of private tourism accommodation. In Poreč, on the other hand, spatial planning remained inherently connected to general social and economic development, and also respected the protection of space as a limited resource. As a result, tourism development here was limited to the reconstruction and upgrading of existing capacity, with the aim of improving tourism facilities and extending the summer season. Since most tourists visit the Croatian seaside between June and September, tourism-dependent cities and municipalities grow in size during the summer and, as a result of fast and uncontrolled urbanization, resemble ‘ghost cities’ in the off-season period. Much of the infrastructure is either insufficiently developed to handle the pressures of summer tourism, or is underused and left to decay throughout the rest of the year. Extending the tourism season is therefore a priority in coastal Croatia.

In 2006, the spatial plan for the city of Makarska gave an overview of all issues resulting from the transition to a market economy. The authors of the plan suggested that the two largest problems were, on the one hand, illegal construction that was usurping public recreational and forest areas, and on the other, legal construction that neglected any long-term development perspective. Both types favoured private interest and were anything but the result of careful consideration of how quality spatial development could be made sustainable. The lack of vision in Makarska is best illustrated by the chronic traffic issues that have jeopardized any normal city life. The construction density has increased without investment in communal infrastructure, thereby diminishing the overall quality of life. In addition, agricultural areas have been wasted on residential units and access paths. And even those areas for which detailed development concepts existed have ended up seeing these plans poorly implemented. ^[71]

The opportunity to make quick profit has guided tourism urbanization during times in which best practices in spatial planning have been neglected. The transition has contributed to the perception that every square metre can be urbanized and henceforth turned into significant profit. Due to the lack of effective controls, very many previously green and pristine coastal areas have been urbanized. ^[72] Such misuse of space has certainly benefited investors in the short run, but in the long run it represents a serious issue for all stakeholders. The Makarska municipality became much smaller when the new territorial organization was adopted in 1993 and areas such as Brela and Podgora, previously included in the municipality, obtained municipal status as well. However, with only a few municipal employees and no clear vision for development provided at the central level, nothing has stood in the way of accelerated tourism urbanization. Not only were the new municipalities understaffed, employees also often lacked sufficient education and the skills to handle the specific spatial planning tasks they were in charge of. ^[73]

While many other parts of the Croatian Adriatic have faced the same urbanization pressures as Makarska, Poreč has managed to protect its space well. During the last war and in its immediate aftermath, Istrian flagship companies, including Istraturist, Laguna Novigrad, Riviera Adria, Plava Laguna, and Maistra, were privatized. The focus of the tourism sector in Poreč was on modernization and a quality upgrade of the existing tourism facilities. The Istria county spatial plan, developed in 2002 and particularly tailored for Istria taking into account all the nuances of heritage, landscape, urbanization and regional specificities, was the first regional plan adopted since Croatia transitioned to a market economy. It focused on fostering long-term development through environmental protection, further decentralization and the modernization of the industrial and service sectors. ^[74] Moreover, new plans were adopted to further define the development of tourism and its supporting areas within the previously urbanized areas, such as the ‘Žatika – Veli Jože’ and ‘Saladinka – Sv. Martin’ recreational and tourism zones. As a result, the total number of accommodation units during the 1990s and 2000s did not surpass the number planned and developed by 1985 (78,864). ^[75]

Most recent data provides a telling comparison between the two cities. Poreč started modestly in comparison to Makarska, but has considerably outpaced Makarska in the total number of tourist beds. While Poreč has many more accommodation units (35,863) than Makarska (20,551), the quality of Poreč as a destination—in terms of attractions, amenities, accessibility and activities— is higher. The number of overnight stays in hotels alone is higher than the overall number of overnight stays in Makarska. This is an important indicator of the types of tourism developed in the two cities. Hotels are generally considered to contribute to the amenities of a destination: in comparison to privately-owned apartments, hotels tend to provide contents such as conferences and health and spa facilities, are better networked with global markets and as a result ensure higher occupancy rates. ^[76] The structure of overnight stays in Poreč and Makarska is therefore a good indicator of the differences between the two cities. Poreč has seen the limited construction of summer homes, while Makarska allowed a construction boom based primarily on this type of private accommodation. As a result of apartmentization, Makarska—despite having fewer inhabitants—has more units in private accommodation (13,770 apartments) than Poreč (10,573 apartments) (Table 5).

As mentioned earlier, public facilities and communal infrastructure are largely funded by the paušal, the annual tax charged per tourist bed. However, municipalities are hesitant to raise the tax as apartment owners are also voters. Both Makarska and Poreč charge the same annual tax per bed of 50 euros. ^[77] However, as Poreč earns more from hotels where each overnight stay is individually taxed, more funding is available for public facilities.

The changes in tourism trends, including the individualization of travelling and the diversification of travel opportunities for the citizens of former socialist eastern Europe, undeniably have affected tourism development on the Croatian Adriatic coast. However, the comparison between Poreč and Makarska suggests that the differences identified between the two cities can be explained as an interactive effect of the transition to a market economy, the opening of borders, and the differences in administrative and spatial planning expertise which were substantially conditioned by the ways in which tourism urbanization was managed during transition.

We argue that during socialism Istria developed regional spatial planning expertise, while Makarska did not. While the latter did represent an example of successful spatial planning and environmental preservation during socialism, all initiatives were developed in the central urbanism office in Zagreb rather than locally. After the political changes, political and administrative officials in Istria managed to control developments and continued to pay attention to sustainable policies, be it in relation to private apartments or when it came to protecting the environment.

In Makarska, the same did not happen. Transition to a market economy coincided with war and deindustrialization. As economic opportunities for development became scarcer in other sectors of the economy, the urbanization of land and ensuing apartmentization were welcomed as a source of easy income. Not only was the administrative expertise needed to manage tourism urbanization lacking on the local level, a comprehensive vision of development which would ensure that tourism contributed to overall societal goals was also absent on the national level.

Conclusion

Socialist planning in Yugoslavia, and thereby in Croatia, ensured controlled tourism urbanization by taking into account the overall tourism demand, regional specificities, as well as environmental protection. Focusing on the comparison between Makarska and Poreč, we have shown that after the demise of the socialist state, the lack of both spatial planning expertise generally, and long-term oriented spatial planning in particular, led to the fast consumption of valuable coastal land. During the late 1950s and in particular the 1960s, awareness grew in Yugoslavia of the necessity to protect the available space from fast and improvised tourism urbanization in the face of mass tourism. From the initial local level, measures to develop and protect these resources were gradually broadened to include regional plans that encompassed the islands, the coastal belt, and the hinterlands. This included the implementation of appropriate legislation that adapted the tourism and spatial planning goals to broader social interests.

The transition to a market economy that began in the 1990s led to a change in the ownership of resources and the structure of investment incentives. The prime change concerned the relationship towards property, and this in turn influenced the goals of spatial planning and tourism. These goals now responded to free market mechanisms, with the result that broader social aspects were neglected. Tourism planning structures were decentralized, and both newly established municipalities and private sector actors were now in charge of tourism development. The existing tourism companies were privatized, and private interest overshadowed public concerns. Frequent legislative changes were adopted without intersectoral cooperation, and the consequences of privatization as well as of poor administrative resources and knowledge were quickly felt. As a result, spatial planning and urbanization patterns started to reflect short-term, particular interests. Any suitable taxation system that would have helped to fill municipal budgets was largely missing, so that public interests such as communal infrastructure and recreational areas were neglected, while the development of private apartments flourished. Soon, the previously well-preserved Croatian coast displayed the characteristics of urban sprawl and linear coastal urbanization.

During the Croatian War of Independence, many tourism facilities in the southern Adriatic were neglected and to an extent destroyed. In addition, poorly implemented privatization as well as deindustrialization led to a drop in competitiveness and the loss of the spatial planning standards that had been achieved. Also, the lack of opportunities for development in other economic sectors contributed to the loss of long-term and public interest perspectives in spatial planning and supported the uncontrolled development of private apartments. Much of the construction in this phase was illegal or at least not carried out in accordance with best practice principles. Not only was public interest disregarded, but such basic things as the height, dimensions, size, and shape of buildings received no attention. Makarska was in the midst of these developments.

Contrary to this more general development, the Istrian peninsula was not directly affected by the war of the 1990s even though the tourism sector suffered here, too. However, many of the existing facilities were preserved and with the introduction of the market economy the fact that local structures of tourism administration had been developed proved to be a great advantage. Istria continued to focus on long-term development and environmental preservation. The emphasis was thus placed on the renewal and upgrading of existing accommodation and on controls to prevent the excessive development of private apartments.

More recent global changes in the tourism industry and the resulting shifts in tourism demand may potentially affect tourism and land use in Croatia, too. While outside the scope of this paper, it would be useful to investigate further whether and how the increased individuality and mobility of tourists, as well as the digitalization of the tourism offer, are transforming the Croatian coast, including the apartmentization trend endured by the Croatian Adriatic coastline.