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Anđelko Leko, Famous Hotelier Who Transformed Croatian Tourism Dies

Some sad news as one of the most recognisable faces of Croatian tourism passes away.

While the face of Croatian tourism is likely to be an ever-changing one, the memory of one man has remained the same, and will undoubtedly remain the same throughout, even in his death.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 22nd of June, 2018, a great number of people who work in Croatia's tourism industry have been left in a state of shock following the sudden and unexpected death of the respected Croatian hotel legend, Anđelko Leko.

The well-known Croatian hotel owner and a face eternally associated with the continual transformation of the country's tourism sector, 85-year-old Anđelko Leko, sadly passed away on Thursday in Zagreb.

The long-time CEO of HUP, whose portfolio lie the beautiful Westin and Sheraton hotels in Zagreb, recently sold his majority stake in the Adris group and announced a withdrawal from the business to which he has given his life since 1959, initially employed as a waiter in Pivovara on Ilica, according to a report from Vecernji List.

"He was superior, a true hotelier, a visionary. There's nobody like of his kind in this country, and they're rare in the rest of the world as well. Everyone who had the opportunity to learn from him was lucky. He was a great man, for whom the little man was always put in the first place. He was not an ordinary director and company president, he was concerned about every single worker, he was always calm, and he never raised his voice. He left us only four months after he sold his hotels and I can't help but wonder if his heart stopped beating because of that,'' commented Amelia Tomašević, the City of Zagreb's former tourist board director, in fond memory of the late Anđelko, with whom she worked closely for many years.

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