As in other Mediterranean destinations, especially the sun & beach ones, tourist flows in Istria are characterized by a very high seasonality. But, due to its geographical position and its tourism resources, Istria aims to enlarging the seasonality up to 8 months and achieve a sustainable increasing of visitors.

THR, discussing with tourism actors in multiple workshops, contributed to defining the optimum tourist model in Istria, establishing sustainable development characteristics and strategies through sophisticated econometric models. THR identified 27 programs for improvement of Istria’s competitiveness, and over 400 investment opportunities. There were specific marketing plans elaborated for 8 clusters – local tourism destinations – as well as 9 marketing plans per sectors (hotels and apartments, cam sites, private accommodation, nautical tourism, rural tourism, special interest, events, meetings and tours). All of it was completed with an Umbrella Marketing Plan. Finally, an implementation plan systematized and estimated the cost of the program of almost 2000 tasks to be realized defining the organizational form for its execution. THR considered very important offering an important role to the local Tour Operators – private sector, commerce and communities, in developing the region. The plan pleaded for a high level of efforts and mechanisms employed for achieving the consensus of a large variety of actors.

Due to the success and consensus achieved with the Master Plan, THR was asked for carrying out its implementation.