Nowadays, we are witnessing the fact that tourism has become the most significant economic activity on a global scale, which continuously generates high growth rates year after year. That is certainly the contribution of the ubiquitous forces of globalization and technology that provide better access to information about tourist offerings. At the same time, great dynamism is observed in tourist demand, thus increasing the unpredictability of tourist' choices, competition in tourist offerings is more pronounced, geographical differences among remote destinations are getting smaller and ecological awareness grows. In such a highly competitive environment, tourist destinations can come to the desired level of market visibility and recognition only through branding and the pursuit of continuous activities of building their own competitive identity with clearly defined communication strategies. Competitive identity is the decisive factor that undoubtedly differentiates a particular tourist destination from all others. About 10 years ago, Krapina-Zagorje County among the first counties in Croatia recognized the importance of branding and decided to promote itself as a unique tourist destination through a uniform visual and marketing communication. This is how the unique brand of the County was created under the slogan "Zagorje – A fairy tale at hand". The graduate thesis analyzes the strategic framework for the development of the County tourism and the goals of branding through achieved tourist results, recognitions and awards, implementation of planned activities foreseen by the County Development Strategy and the Master Plan of the County Tourism Development. Through an online survey questionnaire the empirical part of this thesis aims to examine the perception and attitudes of the target group of students on the image of the County as a unique tourist destination. Research results showed that the respondents consider the County a "partially recognizable" tourist destination, with a tourist offer of the County they are "mostly acquainted", all elements of the tourist offer of the County "are mostly attractive" to them, but they believe that marketing and communication activities are "mostly inadequate". Such responses imply the need for additional engagement at the level of the entire County in order to achieve greater reach to potential markets.