CLUSTERING OF TOURIST BOARDS A CHANCE FOR A BETTER USE OF EU STRUCTURAL FUNDS – CASE STUDY VUKOVAR - SRIJEM COUNTY

Croatia is at the very end of its pre-accession process of joining the European Union, during which many institutions and entities had the opportunity to apply and obtain the pre-accession funds. Th e aim of these funds was to reduce regional disparities between Member States and candidate countries, to strengthen the public institutions with a focus on integration into the system of the European Union and to prepare them for the use of the Structural and Cohesion Fund after accession. Tourist Boards in collaboration with local government units, legally defined as carriers of tourism development for specifi carea were also one of the entities who had the opportunity as a project applicants and / or partners in the project to become the beneficiaries of pre-accession funds. This research shows that during the pre-accession period 2007-2013 there were not so many of such projects. Small number of projects that were fi nanced from pre-accession funds is the result of the shortcomings of the administrative and organizational functioning modes of tourist boards in the Republic of Croatia. With creation of additional cooperation between larger number of local government units who have the same or similar tourism characteristics on their territory, between tourist boards and development agencies active in this fi eld as well as between other entities in tourism, situation could be changed signifi cantly. Then it comes to merging into “clusters”, which show the great opportunity of devel opment with regard to their current funding by the relevant ministries and the European Union in the future. This paper will review the legal options for the development of possible models, and show in a concrete example of Vukovar-Srijem County that theoretical model can fi nd its application in practice in one undeveloped tourist area.