Sports and events play an important role in local identity building and creating a sense of community that encourages participation and increases social capital. Rural communities are specific areas with special needs and can face challenges and restraints when it comes to event organisation. The purpose of this paper is to identify organisational challenges and analyse the potential to achieving long-term sustainable social and economic outcomes linked to small-scale sports events in rural communities. Organisational challenges of rural communities in terms of organising sport events are examined and discussed using the framework of event leveraging developed by O'Brien and Chalip. This methodology is applied and discussed to a case study focusing on small-scale winter sport events in rural Croatia. Semi-structured interviews with local organisers were conducted in order to collect data on the overall event organisation and management, local coordination, role of community stakeholders and challenges facing strategic planning, with the intent to identify objectives for future events. Results were discussed independently and in the context of the leverage framework, with reflection on its applicability to rural communities as the event organisers. Recommendations are provided based on critical insight from the literature and are oriented on how to streamline the process of organising, delivering and managing of events in remote rural communities. Finally, the idea of inter-community organisation is proposed to ensure long-term social and economic benefits and to address the existing issues of overlapping of stakeholder categories, mixed objectives, distrust among stakeholders and inefficiently used local resources.

The connection between tourism development and the natural environment is more intense in outdoor sport tourism than in many other forms of tourism. Natural settings (space), sport activities undertaken and the motivations of the people who participate in them interact to create sport tourism experiences. Tourist safety and security are also proved to be important elements of a tourist experience and it seems that sport tourists may be more sensitive to safety issues than non-sport tourists. This paper therefore aims to analyse the importance of the natural environment and safety and security issues, as constitute event business model elements, in providing sport tourism experiences. The natural setting is also examined as a motivation to participate in sport tourism travel. On the basis of 464 questionnaires gathered from active participants of 16 small-scale sport events in four different outdoor sports, exploratory factor analysis was conducted on motivational statements and revealed a conceptually clear sevenfactor structure. One of them, titled 'Nature', was the second most important motivational dimension for participants but differences between particular sports were considerable. In terms of business model elements included in the survey, participants gave high importance to all elements related to the natural environment and safety and security. Scenic destination, scenic and interesting course, course safety and event safety were the most important elements of event business models for participants in all four sports. Environmental management and proper implementation of security and crowd control measures were also singled out as important event processes. However, results of ANOVA indicate statistically significant differences between the sports in seven out of nine business model elements. These findings shed some light on the managerial aspects of sport tourism practice, helping managers to better serve sports and tourism needs at a particular event and in the destination.

Despite its growing popularity, the term business model has not been uniquely defined so far. Within the management science and practice, it has been frequently confused with other popular terms. This article aims to bring clarity into what stands behind the business model concept by providing a review of the most common themes used in defining business model elements. It also discusses the relationship between the concept of a business model, on one hand, and strategy and sustainability, on the other. A few conclusions emerge. First, although there are no generally accepted definitions for either the business model or its building blocks, academics and practitioners agree that a business model is all about value. Second, a business model is not the same as a strategy but it has an important role in strategy implementation. Third, sustainability is found to be a hot topic for business models and has been increasingly used in symbiosis with this concept. Besides being a theoretical contribution to a definition of the business model as an independent concept, the findings may be particularly helpful to managers and business practitioners seeking ways to enable their firms to deal with complex market challenges and gain competitive advantage.

Community-based tourism was developed as holistic and comprehensive approach to local sustainable tourism development with emphasis on all-inclusive community participation at all levels of development. If developed well, community-based tourism can significantly improve state of local communities through empowerment and promotes greater economic and social benefits to individuals and organisations. One of the important characteristics of community-based tourism is the establishment of an organising mechanism in charge of involving various community members and ensuring their active participation. The purpose of this paper is to contribute understanding of community-based tourism and local community participation by addressing issues associated with establishing new local community-based tourism organisation, more precisely, examining attitudes of key local tourism stakeholders towards the very idea of the establishment of a new community-based tourism organisation, its potential characteristics and their personal involvement. Mixed methods have been employed for the purpose of gaining deeper insight into attitudes of local residents and local tourism entrepreneurs in the region of Gorski kotar in Croatia – focusing specifically on Ravna Gora. Research findings reveal important differences between more socially oriented local residents and profit-seeking local tourism entrepreneurs in terms of personal involvement as well as the characteristics of hypothetical new community-based tourism organisation.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to identify the organisational challenges of cultural tourism development in rural areas and to discuss and address those challenges using the principles of a community-based tourism concept. Methodology -A desk research was conducted to investigate cultural tourism in rural areas and the community-based tourism concept. Then, the case study of Gorski Kotar was introduced as an example of a rural area with potential for further cultural tourism development. Secondary data on Gorski Kotar was gathered from various sources and processed using qualitative approach for the purpose of identifying and analysing the key organisational challenges of cultural tourism in rural areas. Those challenges are discussed in the context of a shift towards community-based tourism and its main principles. Findings -Key organisational issues in the management of cultural tourism in rural areas have been identified and linked to rural community capacities in terms of insufficient social and human capital. In line with the fact that cultural tourism assets are usually an inseparable part of local identity, community-based tourism as a model of tourism developed, owned and controlled by the local community, can be very useful in overcoming organisational problems involved in creating and sustaining tourism products based on local culture. Originality of the research -This paper deals with the rather unexplored topic of analysing organisational elements and challenges as potentially the main causes of success/failure of cultural tourism in rural areas.

Benchmarking is essential for developing destinations to improve and develop their service delivery. Croatia is a well-established summer tourism destination, but more remote (inland) destinations seek to increase their competitiveness to help sustain Croatian tourism year-round—to diversify tourism offerings beyond the (more traditional) sea and sun opportunities. Expanding Croatia’s tourism offer will require additional investments, not only in coastal destinations but in rural continental areas as well. Looking at how more established rural and winter destinations are planned and managed, this paper seeks to discuss how Croatia can learn from its neighbour Slovenia which has well-established winter sports destinations (in rural areas). This is where a benchmarking approach, building on a comparative analysis conducted through fieldwork research contributes new insight. Research was conducted in both Pokljuka (Slovenia) and Gorski kotar (Croatia) between 2015 and 2017. Three different procedures were used to collect data: (1) documental research of the destinations, facilities and events, (2) on site visits involving qualitative interviews and conversations with key stakeholders and (3) direct observation of the destination while attending events. Three emergent themes best reflected the analysed insights from the data collection: infrastructure, business operations and community involvement/stakeholder participation. To assess different points of service offering and delivery, discussions in Pokljuka were framed around sports tourism opportunities and their established business models to understand planning, management, organisation and service delivery. These same three points are then discussed as opportunities for Gorski kotar. To reiterate the benchmarking focus, first research must present a comparative analysis and then put emphasis on planning and managing service delivery to help highlight how insight from a well-established destination informs emerging destinations with tourism potential.

While the importance and positive impact of small-scale sports events for the tourism of host regions has been well researched, the possibilities of branding such events under a common denominator have not been fully explored. This paper attempts to provide an approach for using the concepts of brand personality and umbrella brand for the purpose of small-scale sports event analysis and promotion recommendations. Gorski Kotar, an underdeveloped region in Croatia, was chosen as the research area. The research target was small-scale sports events organised in this area. The aim was to build a general recommendation of an overall umbrella brand for all examined events, developed from the brand personality traits of each event (sub--brands). Using desk research along with workshops and interviews with organisers, three characteristics for each of the 81 small-scale sports events were extracted. The existing framework of five brand-personality dimensions by Aaker (1997) was used for the purpose of coding characteristics into traits and later linking with factors. An overall brand personality profile of all events was created and results imply the necessity of introducing a new factor called Nature (nature-oriented) into the existing framework.

Every firm employs a particular business model seeking competitive advantage. However, this pursuit is difficult, and sometimes unsuccessful. The reasons for failure should be sought in the managers' lack of understanding of their organisations' business models, their unique building blocks, and the potential that they have. To help managers better understand business models, this paper reviews the extant literature and identifies the elements of business models cited therein. Further, considering the new needs on the changing markets and the prevailing search for sustainability beyond profit, this paper portrays essential business model elements in an integrated framework. An updated generic business model framework consists of four primary categories, namely, value proposition, value capture, value creation, and value network, and could be useful for a variety of organisations, profit and non-profit, with various mission and vision orientations and interaction with the environment.