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Air traffic is a very important traffic branch, since it provides the possibility of fast travelling long distances between countries and contributes to the development of economy, trade and tourism. The number of long-distance travels has been increasing, people have started to travel more and therein, the importance of air traffic has been growing. The Republic of Croatia has to take advantage of its favourable geographical position at the crossroads of West and East Europe, which facilitates the development of air traffic. Airports have major significance for the development of air traffic, and it is of great importance that they provide high quality services, i.e. that their users are satisfied. With the aim of establishing the level of user satisfaction with transportation and the supporting services in Croatian airports, an empirical research via an online survey has been conducted, where the respondents were asked about how often they used the airports in the Republic of Croatia, their supporting services, the importance of the factors influencing the decision-making on buying the ticket for the specific airline and overall satisfaction with the services in Croatian airports. The results of the primary research suggest that the users, when deciding on buying the ticket, put the price and safety first. The users are not entirely satisfied with the price-quality ratio and are not content with the prices of the parking in airports and with the airport facilities that provide hospitality services. Furthermore, it has been established that user satisfaction with transportation and the supporting services can be perceived through three factors: 1) additional services; 2) user satisfaction with additional services; 3) satisfaction with the staff and prices of additional services. The paper also analysed user satisfaction with transportation and the supporting services considering socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents. The key limitation of the research paper is the impossibility of conducting the research on site, at Croatian airports, where the users have "contact with the service", especially the supporting services. It is highly plausible that conducting research at the airports would contribute to more representative research findings and recommendations for the management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the data collected through a survey which examined attitudes of participants in the costal maritime traffic of the Republic of Croatia on the introduction of electric ships in the system. Croatia has one of the most indented coastlines in Europe and the world, and 2.92% of its total population lives just on the islands. An important factor for the life of the island's population and sustainable development of the island is certainly public traffic in the coastal maritime traffic services which includes 51 state line and serviced by 14 shipping companies with 77 ships. Permanent and regular lines between the islands and mainland and between the islands is essential for sustainable development of the islands, but it must not ignore the negative impact of maritime traffic on the environment. Croatian's strategic goal is safe and environmentally sustainable maritime traffic and space which includes an active change in the system of the the coastal maritime traffic. A prerequisite change is to raise awareness about the environment and causes of pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in traffic, freight and passengers has led to an overload of road routes that were no longer able to absorb the growing amount of traffic, and this resulted in unexpected problems related to traffic jams, increased costs and environmental pollution. It was very important to find a suitable alternative that would fully meet all users' criteria and would be able to follow current and future economic expansions, increase in trade and population growth. As a possible solution, the European Union proposed a program of short sea shipping connections, which represents a certain type of innovation. Its aim is to unburden the overloaded road routes and offer sea routes as an alternative. On its path of development the implementation of the program meets many obstacles. Firstly, it is necessary to identify these obstacles, and then to remove them, in order to enable faster and better progress. Therefore, this paper gives a special attention to identifying obstacles that impede the implementation of short sea shipping connection in developed countries of the European Union, and also in the Republic of Croatia. The paper also presents a part of the 'Motorways of the Sea' program, which refers to the introduction of a new intermodal logistics chain, based on ship transport, which should bring structural changes into the organization of European transport. Thus allow for successful functioning of the short sea shipping connections and overcoming the obstacles which impede its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at presenting cruise tourism in Slovenia. Slovenia has a small coastal strip (46 km), which is the reason why there are only a limited number of ports. The only passenger terminal for large cruise ships is located in the Port of Koper. Cruise tourism started in Slovenia in 2015. Since the beginning, the number of cruise ships has grown substantially. The aim of the study is to investigate the impacts of cruise tourism in the city of Koper, as perceived by local tourism stakeholders. The results have shown that there is still a strong support to develop this sector of tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ports Rijeka, Koper, Trieste, Venice and Ravenna are ports of the North Adriatic multiport gateway region (NA). They have a good geographical location and modem container terminals, but this multiport gateway region has been facing lower rates of container throughput than the rest of the multiport gateway regions in Europe. The paper aims at providing an overview of the dynamics of competition among the NA ports - Koper, Trieste, Venice, Ravenna, Rijeka - and at analysing the throughput in this ports in the last twenty years. Based on these numbers, a simple but efficient model to forecast the possibility of growth or fall of traffic in the next year has been found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to some recent figures, the European cruise industry continues to increase its share of the global cruise market with 25.2 million passengers visiting a European port in 2010; 5.2 million passengers joined their cruise in Europe in the same year with the industry generating €35.2 billion of goods and services and providing almost 307,000 jobs. However, far beyond the "macro" figures, it is imperative to gain a better understanding of the relationship between these macro-data and specific city-related cases. The article points out that cities (as cruise destinations but also as efficient services bases for the ships) are becoming more important in cruise marketing and that the economic link between the cruising world and cities (with their local communities) is something which is at the least in part governable and should be the object of an active strategy on the part of the cities. These conclusions are confirmed by the results of an EU project ("Cruise Traffic and Urban Regeneration" -- CTUR), recently developed within the "EU-URBACT Program" framework and focused on the relationship between "cruises" and "cities". The project, leaded, as a "lead Expert", by the author, provided guidelines to support harbour-cities to fully exploit the economic and social development opportunities offered by cruise traffic. Mainly through case studies and examples referred to the CTUR Project, the paper both focuses the "local economic impact of cruise traffic" and summarizes guidelines aimed at optimizing the harbour-cities strategic approach to the cruise business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the intention to make a geo-traffic analysis of the situation and to forecast the global container traffic flows, the paper aims at analysing the rapid development of the container traffic and its respectable participation in the maritime and total world trade. The regional position of the world container traffic is analysed in particular, indicating the most important container traffic regions and the world container traffic flows. Analysing the container traffic intensity and the dynamics in the world container ports, as referent nodes of the container traffic flows, the main world, Asiatic, American and European container ports are defined. Based on the current data and relevant forecasts of the container traffic flow dynamics and development, some predictions of the container trade development as well as the distribution of the container traffic volume towards the leading market regions are analysed too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]