Cooperatives as organizational forms suitable for the sustainable development of tourism in rural areas

Sa？etak Cooperatives are spread all over the world and are recognized as the viable form of organization that successfully combines economic and social sustainability. Rural areas, due to their specific characteristics, often suffer from depopulation and stagnation of economic and social development, but contemporary tourism trends show the increase of the interest for integral rural tourism experiences, which provides significant development opportunities for these areas. The aim of this paper is to present the key advantages of cooperatives as specific organizational forms in the sustainable development of tourism offer in rural areas and to comment on the possibilities of development of tourism cooperatives in Croatian rural areas. Literature research results confirm the comparative advantages of cooperatives as sustainable organizational forms, but the analysis of the number of cooperatives in Croatia points to the lack of recognition of these advantages, especially in the context of cooperatives in tourism