EVENTS IN FUNCTION OF INCREASING RECOGNIZABILITY AND COMEPTITIVENESS OF A TOURIST DESTINATION (Case study: Rijeka and Strumica Carnival)

Events represent an important part of a contemporary tourist offer, whose organization can bring numerous advantages for the tourist destination, in terms of socio-economic development, diversification of the tourist product on the tourist market and many others. Its successful development enable for destination to create a new and diverse tourist product based on its own tradition and active involvement of destination´s cultural- historical heritage on the tourist market, but with a particular accent for tourist not to cause negative influences on the heritage itself. Previously mentioned is of extreme importance for increasing recognizability and competitiveness, as well as branding the tourist offer and the destination. Rijeka and Strumica Carnival represent an important part of the tourist product of their cities and countries, so attention must be paid to their future organization and development of their offer. The purpose of the paper is to present the contribution of the events in achieving higher recognizability and competitiveness of the tourist destination on the tourist market, while the goal of the paper is to present the characteristics of Rijeka and Strumica Carnival, and how they contribute in achieving competitive advantages of their cities and countries on the international tourist market