The Croatian National Tourist Board, or HTZ, organized a presentation of the Croatian tourist offer in Australia for the first time in history, reports HRTurizam on July 4, 2019. 

After a successful week-long presentation in Melbourne, there was an even bigger interest in Croatia in Sydney, said HTZ, where the Croatian tourist offer was presented to leading Australian tour operators and 82 Australian tourist agents. This workshop was organized in cooperation with the Slovenian Tourist Board under the slogan "Experience Croatia, Feel Slovenia".

"I must admit that the interest in Croatia and Croatia's tourist offer in Australia exceeded our expectations. We presented to the leading Australian tour operators who already offer Croatia their programs, but what is especially delightful for many tourist agents is that they want to cooperate with Croatian tourist companies because of the great interest of Australians traveling to our country,” said the HTZ director Kristjan Staničić, adding that this year, Croatia is focusing on increasing the country’s promotion in faraway markets such as China, the United States, Canada, Singapore, South Korea and especially Australia.

As highlighted by the HTZ, the presentation in Sydney was attended by tour operator Experience Croatia & More, a company with more than 40 years of experience in the tourism industry that first introduced Croatia as a tourist destination on the Australian market; Greece and Mediterranean Travel Center, an Australian agency specializing in the sale of Greece, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Malta and Croatia; Excite Holidays, the leading Australian, but also global, travel platform for travel, accommodation, transportation and Sun Island Tours, specializing in the sale of Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey.

"The interest of Australians traveling to Croatia year after year is growing, they are travelers who do not like, but love adrenaline, sports, good fun and great food, and your country is abundant in that. Croatian Australians want to see and explore,” said Paul Polyviou, CEO of Sun Island Tours, praising the release of a special brochure devoted exclusively to cruise journeys on the Croatian coast this year.

The city of Zagreb looks forward to being a ‘city break’ destination.

"The Australian market is extremely important to our city because Australian guests stay longer in the destination, and for them, Zagreb is a great value for money and is the starting or ending point of a long journey to Croatia and the neighboring countries. Zagreb is presented as a year-round destination with countless events all year long, and this is exactly what is important as we recognize it as a ‘city break’ destination in Australia. Another focus is also on health tourism which is of particular interest to tourists from Australia, and the rich cultural offer the city of Zagreb makes it one of the most important cultural and tourist destinations,” said Zagreb Tourist Board Director Martina Bienenfeld.

Since 2015, Zagreb has recorded a steady rise in visitors from Australia. In 2018, there were 30,636 arrivals and 64,288 overnights, which is an increase of 81 percent in arrivals and 91 percent in overnight stays compared to the year before. 

Luka Olivari, a representative of Rijeka - European Capital of Culture 2020, noted that Rijeka was highly acclaimed by Australian travel agents. "Australian tourist workers are particularly interested in art, education and pop culture, which Rijeka has been at the forefront of for years. Rijeka has so far been a lesser known destination for Australian travelers and these workshops have contributed to increasing the tourist attractiveness of the whole region and strengthens the identity of the city,” concluded Olivari.

In order to fully complete the promotion of the Croatian tourist offer in Australia, the Croatian tourist delegation will host a presentation on Friday, July 5th, in front of twenty leading Australian travel and lifestyle media like Travmedia, Get Lost Magazine, Marie Claire, Gourmet Traveler, Travel Weekly Australia on July 5th in Sydney , SBS, Harper's Bazaar, Travel Tolk, KarryOn, Escape, Luxury Travel Magazine, MiNDFOOD, The Australian Women's Weekly, and more. 

The presentation and workshops were attended by 11 Croatian tourist entities, namely TZ Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Rijeka - European Capital of Culture 2020, Croatia Airlines, TZ Zagreb, TZ Dubrovnik, Katarina Line Cruises & Tours, Atlas Plus, Navigare Yachting, Bagatin Clinic, Aronda Adriana Travel and Olivari while Slovenia's tourist offer was represented by four Slovenian partners such as KNM Travel, Ljubljana tourism & Ljubljana Castle, Palma travel DMC and Happy tours.

To read more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page. 

For the first time ever, the Croatian Tourist Board organised the presentation of Croatian tourism in Australia. The presentation and the workshop were attended by 70 Australian tourist agents and seven largest tour-operators in Melbourne. It was organised together with the Tourist Board of Slovenia, under the title "Experience Croatia, Feel Slovenia".

Kristjan Staničić, the Croatian Tourist Board's director, commented on the event, saying that the number of people attending made everyone at HTZ very happy, as presentations and workshops are held so often. Last year, more than 243,000 people visited Croatia from Australia, which is a significant growth of almost 15 percent when compared to the year before. Australians visit Zagreb, Dubrovnik and Split the most, and those three destinations see almost 70 percent of all Australian arrivals.

But, HTZ presented Istria, Slavonia and other regions of Croatia in Melbourne as well. In 2019, the growth compared to the same period of 2018 is around 7 percent.

11 Croatian tourism organisations participated at the presentation and the workshop: The Dubrovnik-Neretva County Tourist Board, Rijeka - European Culture Capital 2020, Croatia Airlines, the City of Zagreb and the Dubrovnik region's tourist boards, Katarina Line Cruises and Tours, Atlas Plus, Navigare Yachting, Bagatin Clinic, Aronda Adriana Travel, and Olivari. Four Slovenian partners were also there to present our neighbours.

Australians have been travelling much more lately, and many factors contribute to that: a strong Australian dollar, globalisation, which lead to lower airfare prices and made travelling to Europe simpler. They are known to be active and adventurous on their travels and stay in their European and American destinations for longer (which makes sense).

Most Australian tourists come from New South Wales, which is where the presentation is going next: after the first presentation in Melbourne, Croatian and Slovenian tourism will next be presented in Sydney on July 4th - it wouldn't make much sense to make the journey just to have the one presentation!

Read more tourism stories on TCN Travel page.

This Croatian startup from Zagreb is a real mix of classical and virtual mobile games, but also has an educational mission.

As Ivan Tominac/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 28th of April, 2019, today, virtual games have replaced classic ones like ''Čovječe ne ljuti se'' (Ludo) or ''Monopoly'', but when classically associated with a digital game, you end up with a smart social game - Mundus.

A passionate love for technology is shared by three students from Zagreb. They all came together two years ago, and their project is Mundus. Social games are undervalued today, these guys agree, and although industry experts might say that their project isn't in demand in this day and age, the fact is that they entered the startup world directly from their school desks and are learning in parallel with the development of the project.

"We had to combine what was unknown knowledge to us back then. But given the fact that we love to learn and to develop technology, it wasn't difficult for us,'' stated of Mundus's members, Filip Hercig, who was the one to kick off the project initially.

The idea for Mundus was quite spontaneous back at the end of 2015 when Hercig, who is now in charge of business development, showcased the very first concept of this clever game during a competition for young technicians and young entrepreneurs. The name changed several times - at the earliest stage it was called ''Zabavan put Hrvatske'' (A fun journey of Croatia) and then ''Svijet na dlanu'' (The world in your palm), before taking on its current name.

"In the summer of 2017, when we came to the CROZ company to develop our ideas, we decided to shorten its name from Svijet na dlanu down to just Svijet, but as it didn't sound good, we decided to translate into Latin, and that's how Mundus began,'' said Filip Hercig.

It seems that Mundus isn't just your regular type of game, and the focus of the project today is on the application of this technology within the scope of formal education. It's actually an educational system, and the game is just one of the solutions the Mundus team is working on. A mobile device acts as a kind of gaming agent, where players choose the theme for the game and launch a quiz, and everything else is played on the game's board, like with classic games before the Internet age.

Things became much more serious for this Croatian startup back in September of last year, when they won the Good Game Liftoff startup competition.

"They chose us as the best startup and besides giving us their trust, they also gave us 100,000 kuna. We can't forget to mention the Good Game Global company that actually organised the competition and raised all the funds for that prize,'' added Hercig.

After winning the Good Game Liftoff, this Croatian startup managed to secure numerous collaborations, is currently working with 48 schools across the Republic of Croatia, and interest in the game has stretched far beyond the borders of the country, and even beyond the borders of the EU and the European continent.

"There's interest on the Australian and New Zealand market, specifically in the education sector. We're currently conducting tests that are a prerequisite for serious moves in these markets,'' said Hercig. Mundus is actually still a non-profit organisation, explained Hercig, and in 2019, it should turn into a real company.

"We're oriented towards cooperating with educational institutions, but of course we're not closing the door to purchase options for private users. We've got potential there tool, and in order to best explore the mass market, we plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign in September 2019,'' concluded Mundus' Filip Hercig.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

Click here for the original article by Ivan Tominac for Poslovni Dnevnik

The well frequented Croatian brand opens its doors on the other side of the world.

Australia has become the 31st national team to qualify for the World Cup in Russia next year. 

The Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Traders offers citizens some unusual tips for their travels to Croatia.

How he spent his summer getting Aussies out of trouble