ZAGREB, 24 Oct, 2021 - Dubrovnik is the best meeting destination in Central and Southeast Europe for 2021 in the category of destinations that can host up to 1,200 congress attendees, according to a regional magazine specialised in business tourism, Kongres Magazine.

The Croatian National Tourism Board (HTZ) reported on this success and Dubrovnik's congress offer last Monday, and HTZ director Kristjan Staničić underscored the importance of such recognition, especially during a pandemic, when business tourism was one of the segments that suffered the most.

He believes that the fact that Dubrovnik and some other Croatian destinations are on Kongres Magazine's list of best regional meeting destinations would greatly help efforts to further position Croatia as a destination for business travel.

The Dubrovnik Tourist Board considers this prestigious recognition important and a prize to everyone in business tourism.

Kongres Magazine published a list of the best meeting destinations in Central and Southeast Europe for this year "Meeting Experience Index 2021", which in addition to Dubrovnik, includes the Croatian cities of Split, Opatija, Rovinj and Šibenik.

In the other categories, Vienna was named the best meeting destination that can host more than 2,000 attendees, Tallinn was the best in the category of up to 2,000 attendees and was followed by Ljubljana and Zagreb, the Slovenian seaside resort of Bohinj in the category of up to 700 attendees, and Prague was the best destination of the New Europe region.

According to the HTZ, the list of the best meeting destinations is based on a complex rating system and in-depth analysis of key segments of the business travel industry, which includes 75 evaluation criteria.

This year Dubrovnik started with business meeting after last year's break due to the pandemic, so the first large international meeting was in June, the ASTA conference with 150 US travel agents, the HTZ recalled.

By the end of the year, many more conferences, corporate events and meeting will take place in Dubrovnik, and in October 2022 the M&I Forum for professionals in the congress industry will take place, the HTZ said.

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ZAGREB, Aug 29, 2020 - Better-than-expected results in the tourist season in July and August in Croatia cannot be applied for stakeholders in conference tourism and tour operators that rely on doing business in shoulder seasons, the association of business tourism within the Croatian Chamber of Commerce said on Saturday.

The association recalls that total coronavirus lockdown was imposed this spring, a period when business tourism usually has the most intensive activities, and this HGK group also fears of the imminent restrictions in the post-season when this type of tourism should resume its activities.

Jasmina Kanas of the HGK business tourism association says in a press release that Friday's decision made by the national COVID-19 crisis management team whereby all healthcare institutions are supposed to postpone congresses, symposiums, conference, workshops, lectures and similar gatherings until further notice is "the last nail in the coffin" for business tourism.

Kanas recalls that a majority of gatherings organised by business tourism stakeholders are in the field of medicine.

Public healthcare protocols can be fully complied with at events organised by our businesses, and participants in such events are people (healthcare workers) who have got accustomed to applying even stricter epidemiological measures, Kanas says.

The HGK group also underlines that it does not blame anyone for the latest developments and that protagonists have the full understanding for the epidemiological measures in place.

We hope that the government will also show understanding, given that our revenues in 2020 are equal to zero, as a direct consequence of the epidemiological measures.

Kanas says that stakeholders in business tourism cannot be equally treated as businesses in other types of tourism that have manged to secure some earnings.

Therefore they request some incentives to overcome this year, such as non-repayable subsidies equal to 10% of their turnover in 2019.

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Today in Zagreb as part of the 5th Forum of the Croatian Congress Industry, Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli presented an action plan for the development of congress tourism.