ZAGREB, November 1, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic spoke on the phone on Sunday with Zadar County prefect Bozidar Longin after a magnitude 4.7 earthquake rocked the wider Zadar area.

The government and all services are ready to help the county, the government tweeted.

Seismologists said the quake struck near Paklenica, 7 km north of Starigrad, at 2.15 p.m.

The earthquake was felt across Zadar County, on the islands of Ugljan, Pasman and Murter, in the towns of Vodice, Sibenik, Drnis and Knin, in the neighbouring Sibenik-Knin County and in the Lika region.

There have been no reports of damage for now, Zadar police said.

Razgovor sa zadarskim županom @BozidarLongin nakon vijesti o potresu. @VladaRH i sve službe spremne su pružiti pomoć Zadarskoj županiji. pic.twitter.com/Vwe9bELtur

— Andrej Plenković (@AndrejPlenkovic) November 1, 2020

ZAGREB, November 1, 2020 - Croatia's farming sector has great potential and for exploiting all those possibilities for growth it is necessary to ensure transfer of new know-how and technologies and to build processing capacities, the Smarter company has said.

The most important export plant in the farming sector, maize, was sown on 258,000 hectares of land this year, and the average yield per hectare is 8.8 tonnes this season. As a result, this year's harvest of this cereal will come to 2.27 million tonnes.

The drop in cattle breeding has also reduced demand for maize, and consequently, the area sown with maize has shrunk over the last ten years by 18%. However, the better yield has reduced the decline in the amount of harvested maize.

When it comes to this cereal and yield per hectare, Croatia has been above the EU average in the last three years. It is now on par with France, however it is still far from Austria where the maize yield is 12 tonnes per hectare, says Smarter.

Croatia's sunflower and soybean production above EU average

When it comes to sunflower, Croatia tops the EU ranking in terms of the yield of this crop in the last five years. In the country, the best sunflower growers have a yield of 4.5 tonnes per hectare.

Also, Croatia's sunflower production is competitive and it can benefit from exporting this crop.

Considering soybean production, in 2012, Croatian soybean growers harvested a mere 97,000 tonnes of this crop. However, the European project called "Danube-Soya" and grants for GMO-free soybean production have provided an incentive to the production of this crop, and in the last three years, its production was over 240,000 tonnes a year.

November 1,  2020 - What do Melinda Gates, NASA, the WTA tennis tour, Cambridge University and lockdown in Dalmatia have in common? They are all helping Making Kastela Great Again - a great lockdown story. 

I meet a lot of crazy people in Croatia, and truly no two days are the same. Many of those crazy people have even crazier ideas, the majority of which never see the light of day, and many of which are forgotten once the bottle of rakija is finished. 

And then there are those crazy people with crazy ideas who actually deliver on those ideas, even when the odds are stacked very heavily against them. 

Crazy people such as Dalmatian Feliks Lukas, a proud Kastela native, whose most impressive accomplishment until this Spring (at least in my eyes) was to bring the WTA Women's tennis tour to a Dalmatian island outside of peak season, attracting some great international names, both on and off the court. I think I am right in saying that the WTA Bol Open is the only tournament on the tour to take place on an island. 

And while the tennis is the highlight, there are also plenty of other incredible moments, as Feliks' considerable charm has helped bring extra promotion for Croatia, as we featured earlier today with this incredible piano performance by Lola Astanova on Zlatni Rat on Bol. Lola had performed at the tennis tournament and was due to make the video, but Feliks managed to persuade her to do so on Brac instead. It is really beautiful, so if you have a few minutes to listen and watch, you will not regret it. 

I met Feliks at the beginning of the year in Zagreb, as he wanted to present me with another of his crazy plans - this time teaming up with senior students from the Cambridge MBA programme with the expressed aim of Making Kastela Great Again. 

And not just any MBA students, but including one whose incredible story of mother of two in Sri Lanka with little experience to leading the team designing the Mars Rover for NASA after 6 years working on SpaceX with Elon Musk, a feat that caught the eye of none other than Melinda Gates.

Melony Mahaarachchi was on holiday in Croatia ahead of starting an MBA programme at Cambridge University and met Feliks:

"A friend of mine, Marino Franinovic, who was at that time advisor of Vice President of EIB, Mr. Vazil Hudak somehow knew or met Melony's husband and he invited me for a drink. I don't know how they met. They were here just for a couple of days in Croatia on a family vacation. She was with her two kids and her husband and I spoke about issues I have as an entrepreneur and the lack of entrepeneurial spirit in Croatia and how young, talented people were leaving the country. They were surprised as they thought it was paradise.

"We kept in touch, and then Melony contacted me out of the blue and told me about the MBA programme in Cambridge. One of the projects that could look into was regenerating a Mediterranean town. She thought of me and beautiful Croatia with the young people leaving and asked if I could suggest a town which could use such expertise. As a proud native of Kastela, it was the obvious place. It will be a great experience for all."

From Mars to Kastela... 

Pretty crazy so far. All was set for the team's arrival in Kastela in mid-March, when Melony and her three Cambridge colleagues would arrive for 4 weeks. Flights were booked and paid for. And then... 

Lockdown!

The flights were cancelled, and there was no chance of the Cambridge team coming for several months. I assumed that the project would be delayed like so many projects in Croatia and all over the world. And I forgot about it. 

Until a few months later when I caught up with Feliks in Kastela. He told me that the final report was almost ready and he would send it to me when it was done. How was this possible? Did they manage to come after all?

No, they have still not managed to visit, but they had all the expert help and more that they could have dreamed of, as Feliks spent weeks visiting every corner of Kastela with his iPhone, taking short videos, explaining, making suggestions. Here are a few short clips to give you a flavour. 

And so they began... I guess if Melony is used to working remotely on projects to Mars from Earth, then Cambridge to Kastela is not so far... Melony has kindly agreed to an interview with TCN about her Croatia experience, which we will bring to you in due course. 

The team set to work, guided by Feliks' diligent work on the ground, many Zoom interviews, and plenty of research. They looked at every single aspect of the destination (and I have no doubt that Feliks showed the every single aspect via his iPhone), so that despite their physical distance, they were able to put together a really very innovative economic development plan for Kastela, one whose main focus was intriguing.

There was plenty of research required away from Croatia of course. Best practices and lessons learned from other similar European destinations of course. 

The 83-page final report has now been finalised and it makes for a fascinating read. As it has not been officially presented yet due to the corona situation, it would be wrong of me to cherry-pick its findings. I will perhaps invite Melony to introduce it during our interview. 

I do have a copy of the final document if anyone would like to read it offline (need to check this is ok to forward) - please contact me on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Subject Kastela. 

And if you come across a crazy guy called Feliks Lukas on your travels around Croatia, buy him a coffee and take him seriously. I have a feeling that bringing WTA women's tennis to Dalmatian islands and Making Kastela Great Again are just the start...

You can follow the latest from Kastela in the dedicated TCN section.   

November 01, 2020 -  At the very end of his term, Mayor Andro Krstulovic Opara, just like his predecessor Ivo Baldasar, has decided to regulate the drinking of beverages in public areas.

A little more than a month and a half ago, this issue was raised at the City Council, and in the meantime, Krstulovic Opara appointed a Commission to draft a Decision banning alcohol consumption in public areas in Split with the task of drafting, more precisely, preparing a draft ban document, which will go to public consultation 30 days before the city hall.

Goran Dlaka, head of the Police Department, Leona Grgic, senior advisor for business management and control of city companies, and Jurica Salinovic, recently appointed chief municipal warden, were elected to the task.

The main problem is to determine whether the ban will refer to all public places or only to some. I think that the direction will go in the way of allowing it Matejuska, ballots, and banning it in front of shops, in close proximity to schools, kindergartens ... they told us from Banovina.

Baldasar's proposal, which didn't reach the councilors three years ago, was a ban on the consumption of alcoholic beverages in public areas, for which a fine of 500 and 250 kuna, respectively, would be imposed.

As we find out, this draft will also serve as a guide.

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November 1, 2020 – Northern Dalmatia has been hit with a strong tremor today, the earthquake in Zadar was estimated to have measured 4.7 on the Richter scale

A strong earthquake has this afternoon shaken the residents of north Dalmatia. The earthquake in Zadar occurred at 2.15 pm on Sunday 1 November. The epicentre of the earthquake in Zadar was 16 kilometres to the northwest of Posedarje municipality and occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers.

The earthquake in Zadar was felt across much of Dalmatia. Residents of Zadar County would have been settling down to Sunday lunch or preparing to visit local cemeteries on All Saints Day as the strong tremor struck. The duration of the earthquake was approximately four to five seconds.

Index media reported their readers had felt the tremor on the islands of Pag, Prvić and Iž, in the city of Split and even in Bihać in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre were contacted by people from Gospić, Sveti Rok, Biograd na Moru, Knin, Solin, Omiš, and even Karlovac who felt the earthquake.

Today's Zadar earthquake is the latest in a series of hundreds of instances of seismic activity that have taken place in Croatia during 2020. The largest earthquake to have shaken the country in over one hundred years took place at 6:25 am on 22 March 2020. The epicentre of that earthquake was around seven kilometres tp the north-east of the centre of Zagreb and the earthquake was measured at a magnitude of 5.5. The Croatian capital and some of its surrounding villages are still dealing with the aftermath.

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ZAGREB, November 1, 2020 - In the last 24 hours, of 8,026 coronavirus tests conducted in Croatia, 27% , that is 2,179, have returned positive, the country's COVID-19 crisis management team stated on Sunday.

In the last 24 hours, there have been 16 COVID-related fatalities, bringing the death toll to 562.

Currently, there are 15,894 active cases, including 1,097 patients who are being treated in hospitals. Of them, 81 are placed on ventilators.

Since February 25, when the first case of the coronavirus infection was confirmed in the country, 51,495  people have tested positive for the novel virus and  35,039  of them have recovered, including 2,221 in the last 24 hours.

Currently, 29,338  people are self-isolating.

To date, 502,048 coronavirus tests have been conducted in Croatia.

November 1, 2020 - Lessons from Rimac - and no, it is not on how to build an electric supercar. A look at how official Croatian tourism video promotion is largely ineffective and costly. But doesn't need to be. 

Last summer, a friend sent me a link to one of the most beautiful videos I have seen promoting Croatia - pianist Lola Astanova performing solo on the tip of the famous Zlatni Rat beach in Bol on the island of Brac. 

Perfectly shot, stunningly performed by a beautiful artiste, there are few better videos online to show the magic of the Adriatic.

Take a look for yourself.

The story behind the video has that Lola was in Bol to perform at the WTA Bol Tennis Open. She apparently absolutely loved Croatia and did a lot of free promotion on her Instagram during her stay (with over 4 million views). She was due to record this video in Venice, but she was persuaded by her new friends on Brac to record it on Croatia's most iconic beach instead, and she covered all the costs of shooting and directing the video. 

A fantastic and free promotion of Croatia, generated from an initiative from the private sector. 

Looking at the video statistics over a year later, the video has had 855,333 views, with some 14,000+ likes and 857 comments. Some serious social media engagement. 

"When you have a moment," said my friend, "take a look at the national tourist board videos and their engagement."

It was a comment which stayed with me and went onto the never-ending to-do list of mine - one which I will never completely overcome. 

Music and Croatia's fabulous coast are the perfect combination, something that 2Cellos have used to their advantage on more than one occasion with their fantastic global promotions of their native country. How about this stunner from Dubrovnik back in 2017, for example? More than 42 million views, 532k likes and more than 12,000 comments. promotion which would give even Kings Landing itself a run for its money.  

When I saw this video, I was reminded of my friend's comment to check national tourist board engagement, but it still remained on my to-do list until this week, after watching THAT Mate Rimac video for the second time. 

The Rimac video had EVERYTHING, easily the best promotional video of Croatia I have seen in a long time. Apart from promoting the tourism beauties of the country, its major focus on why Croatia is a great place to work and live is hopefully the start of a discussion to move Croatia's tourism direction on a new path built on safety, authentic experiences, lifestyle, and digital nomads. In just over a week, the Rimac video has had over 125,000 views, 4,900+ likes and over 700 comments, many of which were extremely positive about Croatia.

I smiled at the end of the video at the slide thanking the national tourist board for use of their footage in the making of the video. Rimac is a smart guy. Why reinvent the wheel (I guess he invents enough of his own in his day job)? If you can get fantastic footage for free, interview a few employees at the office, then throw in some footage of those amazing Rimac cars, the production cost of the video is going to be very affordable. 

It also shows that the stunning footage exists in the official archives. And, as the Rimac production team showed, it is possible to use that footage to create something very engaging and positive, promoting many aspects of life and work in Croatia, as well as tourism - on a budget. Perhaps the Rimac team threw some money to boost the video. I would be surprised if yes, and it certainly got a ton of organic traffic and media space, so there was really no need. 

But really great engagement again. When I saw the national tourist board footage slide at the end of the video, my friend's comment from last year came back into my head, and I decided to finally take a look. 

Having written about the heroes who run the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism for a decade now, there is nothing about their efforts that shocks me anymore. I truly have seen it all. 

Or so I thought. 

For when I looked at the Croatia, Full of Life YouTube channel and compared it to these outstanding examples above, what I discovered was truly staggering. Expecially when one considers what must be at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in social media promotion, in addition to the cost of the videos themselves. Having looked at the channel for 5 minutes, I realised that in order to understand and analyse what I was looking at properly, I would need some industry expert help. I posted such a request on Facebook, and a social media marketing expert from a major Croatian tourism company (who asked not to be named) offered his services, including generating some data on the videos. Thank you,  Sir - you know who you are. 

(Croatia Full of Life YouTube screenshots above, and more below)

I decided to start at the top. What was the most popular official video of all time? Wow! An impressive 22 MILLION views. Very, very impressive. 

Until I saw the engagement. 

Have you ever come across a video on YouTube with over 20 million views which has just 76 likes and 7 comments (including those of the original poster)?

Nor had I. The second most popular video of all time. Again, an impressive 12.2 million views, but just 71 likes and just 4 comments (including those of the original poster). 

If a car maker, a pianist and a couple of cellists could get so much engagement and reaction, liking and sharing of their videos, how was it possible that the Croatian National Tourist Board was getting so little love for its videos? As Rimac had proved, they had the material, and he had shown how to use it. My new online data analyst friend offered to run a report on the 12 most popular videos of all time on the official national tourist board channel. Here is what he found.

Pageviews - seriously impressive  But engagement? Only one of the 12 most popular videos in terms of views with more than 80 likes? And a total of just 32 comments over 12 videos and over 120 million views?

And you don't have to make the world's fastest electric car or be the most famous cello duo in the world to get engagement. Here is my little contribution on Hvar 5 years ago, when I managed to persuade a couple of YouTubers to go for a swim in Gariful's underfloor aquarium, complete with baby shark as part of a report they did on a visit to Croatia's premier island. Some 4.5 million organic views later, it is now the most popular video about Hvar on YouTube, with engagement of 92,000 likes and more than 5,000 comments. I personally have answered at least 10 emails from tourists on Hvar asking me where to find the restaurant so they can go for lunch. 

This screenshot from the official YouTube channel gives us some clues. The same video, posted in numerous languages 8 months ago. The German version, posted twice, has 274,000 views in total, while the Italian one was just viewed 109 times, and the French one a lamentable 61 times. The only explanation, my data expert said, is that the German version had been heavily promoted through a paid campaign, while the Italian and French versions were examples of how the organic traffic looked. Not quite the same as Rimac or Lola.

Indeed, of the 43 videos posted in 2020, over a third (15 of them) have less than 1,500 views. This despite the channel having almost 19,000 subscribers.

Time for another report, said my new friend. In 2020, the national tourist board has apparently posted a total of 43 videos (actually not 43 unique videos, as several have gone out in different languages - each video in a new language is counted as one). And here is a summary on engagement compared to Lola on Brac, 2Cellos in Dubrovnik and Rimac in Sveta Nedelja. Almost 30 million views over 43 videos, which sounds ok until we examine just how much of that is paid promotion below, just 1650 likes over 43 videos (even after paid promotion) - the one Rimac video is already three times higher than all 43 official videos combined as it now approaches 5,000 likes. 

And ZERO comments. How can that be possible?

Quite simple, if the comments are turned off. I don't know much about online promotion, but if you pay to get people to watch a video to then engage, where is the logic in blocking people from doing that by not allowing comments? Perhaps to mask the embarrassment of lack of comments when they were switched on - see above with a total of 32 comments for the top 12 videos of all time. 

Even more curious is the wasted opportunity of using the description to provide a call to action, a chance to engage further. Take this example from a Croatian tourist board video in Polish with over 1.4 million views, but just 17 likes, no comments possible, and no link for further information. 

Now look at this example of how someone in the private sector does it:

This is how Rimac promotes not only his video, but also his company. He guides people through the video with a helpful timeline. But look at the other options to engage further, with a range of calls to action. 

It really is not that difficult, especially as I understand that all this work is outsourced by the national tourist board to a third party. After all there are only 70-80 people working fulltime at head office, so who could possibly have the time to take on such a task?

Interestingly, given that the national tourist board has a policy of not promoting any material from private businesses, the Rimac video was shared on official channels 6 days after it first appeared online. Great stuff, and I hope this is the start in a change of policy. I had to smile to compare the level of engagement on the official national tourist board social media of the Rimac video and then compare it to the engagement to its own record-breaking video with 22 million views. 

So how many likes SHOULD a good video get to indicate how well it is received by its audience? A quick Google search, as well as a question to my new friend, came to roughly the same conclusion:

Like to View Ratio Although likes aren’t taken into consideration when it comes to monetizing your video, it doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Likes will determine your popularity. On average, YouTubers should expect a 4% like to view ratio. That means they should be getting at least 4 likes for every one hundred views. Likes are usually given by people who find your video informative and engaging. If your videos are not getting a high enough like to view ratio, consider an alternate approach.

So Croatia's most popular official video with its 22 million views should then have almost 1 million likes if it was hitting the mark. 

It has just 76. 

If your videos are not getting a high enough like to view ratio, consider an alternate approach.

So how much is all this costing in terms of promotion, to boost these videos that nobody is engaging with?

A Google search reveals a number of prices per view, but my friend suggested a more conservative number of between $0.01 and $0.03 per view. For the sake of this article, let's stick to the conservative end of that (while acknowledging that the amount could be three times higher, or more), so $1 per 100 views. 

Given the lack of engagement and the French and Italian examples above, it is fair to assume that almost all of the traffic is therefore boosted by a paid campaign. Looking at 2020 alone, my friend came up with this. Almost 30 million views so far this year. If the price is $0.01 per view, then that equates to $300,000. If the amount is $0.03 per view, however... 

And this, of course, is just the cost to Google. Add a nice fee to the agency doing the work, and let's not forget the costs of actually producing the material. 

And for what end result? A product nobody engages with, with restricted chance to engage via comments and no call to action to find out more information (not in every video, but in the vast majority I checked). 

There is another tool of measurement I was unaware of - the cost of engagement. How much should it cost for a successful campaign of engagement?

Cost Per Engagement can mean too many things to many people, so there isn't really enough data that is comparable to average out. It's usually not much, however. According to Quora it can be about $2, and according to Reddit, you can pay around $0.01.

A lot more than $2.  As a huge disclaimer, these are suggested numbers based on the expert analysis I was given. I invite the Croatian National Tourist Board to transparently publish the amounts spent on these promotions, as well as their interpretation of the results. There are always two sides to every story. Well, almost always. 

By way of comparison, IF Rimac, 2Cellos and Lola were just promoting their videos with paid similar paid promotion (Lola's management has confirmed all views and engagements are organic, so her cost of engagement is $0), it would compare like this, above. Well within the recommended amount, so they are clearly doing things right. The engagement cost is actually much lower, or even zero (as in Lola's case at least) due to the huge organic traffic. 

So somewhere between $0.01 and $2 then is average. My data friend told me that the calculation as he sent me the above report - page views x 0.01/likes, dislikes, shares and comments. And this price of $169.82 is assuming a conservative ad price of $0.01. If it was $0.03, for example, then the number would be over $500 per engagement.

So what have we learned from all this? And is our tourism promotion money being used effectively?

Lessons from Rimac - we have the material, we need creativity to get the message out effectively (actually let's take a step back, we have to figure out what our message is - the golden era of accidental tourism is coming to an end), calls to action and engagement work. 

We also have the experts in the private sector who can take tourism promotion to the next level for a fraction of the cost of the cash being thrown wastefully at the moment. 

Let's use them. 

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Could smart bins be the solution to Croatia's concerning waste issues? If it's up to A1 Croatia, then the answer is yes.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes on the 31st of October, 2020, the General Manager for A1's business users, Ivan Gabric, said that the company wants to step towards the fourth industrial revolution, trying to recognise the trends of a green future, which they started two years ago when they launched the NB IoT network. They also introduced a free cooling system to reduce the use of air conditioners. "With national coverage with the A1 NB IoT network, we're ready for the exponential growth of the IoT ecosystem in Croatia," said Gabric.

The first model of a smart bin is designed for outdoor use, it enables the compression of waste by increasing the capacity of the smart bin by up to 10 times, it's powered by solar energy and is energetically self-sustaining. The second model is for the internal part, and it's also equipped with a press, status sensors and a system for connecting and sending information, and the disposal of waste in the smart bin is contactless, ie, it opens owing to a motion sensor. The third model is intended for indoor use, it uses artificial intelligence that detects the type of waste being placed in it with sensor cameras and automatically separates it into a suitable container. With the principle of machine learning, each time it recognises the type of waste, it learns, complements its own knowledge base and shares it with other bins in the system.

''Thanks to the IoT cloud platform, it's possible to remotely check the status of the bin at any time so that discharge can be planned efficiently. The map shows the location of the bin, how full it is, and it's possible to create optimal tour routes,'' said Sinisa Stanicic, Director of ICT sales and solutions at A1 Croatia.

The bins can be connected via WiFi, GSM or NB IoT network. The highest standards of hygiene are achieved by non-contact opening, antibacterial coating and are hermetically sealed preventing the spread of unpleasant odors or liquids. They comply with all applicable directives and regulations of the European Union with the CE mark and certificate. It's possible to extend their functionality by adding different sensors such as the measuring of air quality, noise level or WiFi.

''After smart parking, smart metres and air quality monitoring systems, A1 Croatia is continuing with this project with a demonstration of the application of IoT solutions. In addition, our experts will respond to all of the challenges of the smart city concept by creating solutions for specific user requirements. With national coverage with the A1 NB IoT network, we're ready for the exponential growth of the IoT ecosystem in Croatia,'' said Ivan Gabric of A1.

They added that the company presented a number of smart solutions for digitalisation and business improvement for business users on the website www.pametnarjesenja.hr, along with a portfolio of services.

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