Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,Members of tourism parliamentary committees,Representatives of international institutions and organizations,It is a great honour for me to invite you on behalf of the Croatian Parliament to the

European

Inter-parliamentary Conference

on sustainable tourism which will be held in Croatia inSeptember 2014.Croatia is a country of rich cultural heritage and preserved nature well-known on the worldtourist map as a desirable holiday destination with active holiday opportunities. Just like theother countries which are well aware that tourism is an important and perspective part ofnational economy Croatia feels great responsibility for sustainable development of tourismtoo.Being the youngest European Union member state Croatia intents to further improvecooperation and exchange of best practices in that field with EU member states and othercountries especially its neighbours both at the level of tourism expertise and at the level wheredevelopment politics and lows are created and adopted. Possibility of intensified multilateralcooperation among EU national parliaments certainly represents a huge and insufficientlyexplored scope.In this respect Tourism Committee of the Croatian Parliament has launched the initiativeinviting representatives of EU parliamentary committees responsible for tourism as well asSouth East European accession candidate countries and potential candidate countries to meetfor the first time in order to exchange opinions and experiences at the Inter-parliamentaryConference: “Challenges

of sustainable tourism: promoting cultural heritage and

environmental protection”.

Representatives of respectable international institutions andorganizations have also been invited to the Conference.Croatian Parliament will do its best to be a good host hoping that the European Conferencewould open new perspectives of harmonization and development of national politics related tosustainable development of tourism.We expect you in September with an open heart as dear friends.Welcome to Zagreb and to Mali Lošinj, welcome to Croatia.