January 13, 2021 – As part of the EU project City Changer Cargo Bike, Dubrovnik City procured four electric cargo bikes for city companies. Also, to solve crowding and carrying luggage in the historic city core, Mayor Mato Franković revealed that one company is interested in organizing a porter service.

As Dubrovnik.net reports, as part of the EU project City Changer Cargo Bike, the City of Dubrovnik procured four electric cargo bikes for city companies. Two bicycles are intended for the needs of Čistoća company – one of them will be used on Elafiti islands, namely Lopud. The Vrtlar company workers will be using two other bikes in parts of the town where there are no cars, such as Lapad Bay or the historic core.

Electric vehicles – vehicles of the future

Among 20 cities, the City of Dubrovnik received about one million kunas in non-refundable funds spent on electric bicycles, salaries, project documentation, and the exchange of experiences. This project's goal, which is part of the HORIZON 2020 program, promotes urban mobility through innovative solutions. The total value of the project in all 20 project partners is 28.5 million kunas.

"With this project, we continue to transform the city, turning to the technology of electric vehicles, which are the vehicles of the future. In cooperation with Croatian Electricity Company (HEP), charging stations for electric vehicles are being set up. We are also preparing an electric bus project, and the car-sharing project has come to life quite well considering the overall pandemic situation," said Dubrovnik Mayor Mato Franković presenting the City Changer Cargo Bike project.

Electric cargo bikes. Čistoća workers on the left, Mayor Mato Franković on the right. / Source: Dubrovnik.hr

Such bicycles for delivery could make everyday life easier for caterers, traders, delivery services, and citizens. Since this is a pilot project, the mayor says it remains questionable whether the project will come to life and whether more new electric cargo bikes will be procured.

They will learn from the European cities of Utrecht, Cambridge, San Sebastian, and Copenhagen, where the use of cargo bicycles has proven to be very economically viable and effective, especially in their pedestrian or "car-free" zones.

Porter service and transportation of elderly citizens

Franković believes that Dubrovnik should also turn to electric vehicle technology. He points out that the City is also working on electric taxis, but first, it is necessary to ensure all the technical prerequisites in the city. The first electric buses were already planned, but that project was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hopefully, they will be implemented soon.

In addition to reducing CO2 emissions, which is a great environmental benefit of electric cargo bikes, they also reduce noise and crowds in cities. Due to the many tourists who visit Dubrovnik every year, Dubrovnik citizens encounter noise due to suitcases being dragged through the streets in the early morning hours. This destroys the sidewalks, too. Is it likely that this problem could be solved soon?

Crowds in Dubrovnik / Copyright Romulić and Stojčić

"We also have a new idea that arrived recently – the porter service. One company is interested in organizing a porter service for the area of the entire historic core. Our citizens are protesting on suitcases in the early morning hours when they are dragged through the streets. With the porter service, that problem would be solved. Porters would come, take the suitcases, load them on the electric vehicle, and drive them out of town. The suitcases would end up at the airport, where the owner would then take them over," Franković explained.

And besides the porter service, one of the ideas of using electric cargo bikes is to transport senior citizens from the historic center to buses or taxis. Depending on how the project with electric bicycles develops, Franković announced that citizens would be able to use them.

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September 15, 2020 - Good news for Croatian travelers looking to visit the Adriatic pearl this September, as Dubrovnik targets domestic guests in its new late-season tourist offer. 

HRTurizam reports that the promotional activities of the City of Dubrovnik and the Dubrovnik Tourist Board titled "Late Summer in Dubrovnik" - "Dubrovnik, where the heart is", from September 15 to 30, includes discounts and benefits for visitors to Dubrovnik on numerous tourist services from several different categories: sights, museums, galleries, accommodation providers and caterers.

In this way, they want to attract primarily tourists from Croatia, who top the tourist list in Dubrovnik this year. Namely, from January 1 to September 9, tourists from Croatia were first on the list of the most numerous tourists in Dubrovnik. Since the beginning of the year, there were 33,864 tourists from Croatia (83% of last year's tourist traffic in arrivals for the same period), and 113,453 overnight stays were realized (5% more than in the same period last year).

In addition to Dubrovnik's cultural institutions, such as the museums, Lokrum and the Dubrovnik Walls are also included in the offer, which also includes reduced ticket prices in September.

The great news is that the seventh Good Food Festival is being organized this year as well, as a gastronomic event for all lovers of good food, which will be held from September 24 to 27, 2020, following the prescribed measures due to the epidemiological situation.

This year's program will include the traditional Restaurant Week (September 21-27) with festival menus, a special breakfast offer, wine tastings, a sweet festival offer, gastro tours, culinary workshops, a festival house in Pile, a summer gastro cinema program, beer evenings with good street food at Dubrovačka pivovara, and a concert by Ines Tričković Sextet: Runjić in blue and other interesting events.

The chefs of about thirty Dubrovnik restaurants have created festival menus, especially for the Good Food Festival, at promotional prices of up to HRK 150. They will be able to taste them throughout the Festival Week.

The City of Dubrovnik and its institutions will join the action of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Croatian National Tourist Board, entitled ‘A Vacation-Worthy Week’, from October 16 to 25, 2020.

Offering half the price of all tourist products, from accommodation, transport, and sights to catering services and various experiences, this action aims to enable all Croatian citizens to visit and get to know other parts of the country, concludes the Dubrovnik Tourist Board.

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July 3, 2020 - The animated film 'Dubrovnik - Safe Vacation' is part of the marketing campaign of the City of Dubrovnik and the Dubrovnik Tourist Board to revitalize tourism post-corona.

Dubrovacki Dnevnik reports that the 1.33-minute long cartoon, worth 100 thousand kuna, was to be placed on domestic and foreign markets, on airplanes and on cruisers that might have sailed to Dubrovnik in 2020. The City and the Tourist Board decided to step outside of the advertising box and show the beautiful Dubrovnik in a different light. While some applauded the campaign, others are laughing.

The animated video, which has since been removed on YouTube but can be seen on Vimeo, features Knight Orlando, who tells viewers about the beginnings of quarantine in Lazareti in 1377 and explains how to fight epidemics, while presenting the beauties and offers of Dubrovnik. Orlando emphasizes that Dubrovnik is still a safe city that cares about health. 'We knew then, we know today' is the conclusion of the animation, which aimed to attract tourists to this 'safe' Croatian destination.

"If, for example, they were British, would they decide to visit Dubrovnik because of the animation?", the former Minister of Tourism Pave Zupan Ruskovic said briefly. 

Of course not.

The cartoon talks about what the Republic did centuries ago and 'what it did then is certainly not a guarantee that it will work today'.

"People are interested in what has been done today in that sense, if that is their motive for coming. To claim that we are a corona-free destination at the moment is an unreasonable message. It should be realistic because the worst is when the guest feels cheated, and it is the biggest possible anti-advertising," says Ruskovic. She thinks it's good if the animated film is intended for the youngest, but she also wonders if the children even know who Orlando is?'

The long-time leader of the Croatian Tourist Board and former Minister of Tourism Niko Bulic believes that 'the animated film tells the story and now is the time to attack and attract attention'.

"We are here, we are safe, we are beautiful, come! I would go the other way around, with stronger messages, invitations, emphasizing the beauties of Dubrovnik. Like other countries, go with a direct message," believes Bulic, who sees the biggest problem is the fact that the tourist bourds have been left without an inflow of money, and there has been no reaction from the Government. For example, he states that in 1999, the government approved special funds for the promotion of Croatia due to the action of NATO forces in Kosovo.

"We should have reacted in March and prepared an action that would be a direct call saying we will be ready, come. Direct promotion, and not stories that are for a nice time," says Bulic.

Although he did not see the cartoon, the former first man of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival and Marin Drzic Theater, Petar Miso Mihocevic, points out ‘if it is expertly judged that such a campaign makes sense, if it is well marketed and the target audience is known, it certainly makes sense because animations are a serious thing, and they are awarded Oscars'.

"It can be a real way of presentation that is not documented by anything or already overused photos, recordings, videos. Unfortunately, we only sell beauty and never content. This is some new content," Mihocevic says and concludes:

"The beauty of the City is increasingly marred by the surrounding Neum architecture so that it will get lost in that awful ugliness. It may be better to draw it in the future than to show the real picture."

The cartoon would not attract long-term tourist guide Fran Haklička to the City:

"It is too much, the text is too much, and the animation should not have been done in any way. It ends with ‘we knew then and we know now’ - what is that saying? Dubrovnik has always been wise and modest, and that is not in that film. It is terrible to show the beauty of Dubrovnik by a drawing for 100 thousand kuna," Haklička complains.

PR expert Kresimir Macan says that we are happy to have this Dream City serve as a backdrop, but we also have an advertisement in which that City is not seen.

"The ad says: come see something you won't see in the ad. We will see how the people for whom this advertisement is intended will react. In this way, I would advertise a cat in a bag that has nothing to show, and Dubrovnik has a lot to show. The story is good, but it should have been real," says Macan and wonders if this film creates emotion at all?

"Were the viewers able to connect and say 'wow, this is beautiful!'? The question is, can you say that with a cartoon? The previous video of the City of Dubrovnik was impressive. I was delighted with the power of the speedboat coming out of the port, and you want to enter Porat at that moment. It is a detail in the direction and emotion that the previous video achieves. There are a lot of moments that draw you to the City. Here the message may have been conveyed but the atmosphere desired was not created. Although, I like the story because it’s a great link to quarantine," Macan says.

Who will want to come to Dubrovnik based on the video, Macan doesn't know either.

Maybe the idea was that Dubrovnik is so famous, so it doesn't have to be advertised with photos. There are a lot of assumptions. 

After this, Dubrovnik will receive another cartoon, which will promote the 'Respect the City' campaign. 

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May 20, 2020 - A meeting on the topic of launching international flights was held in Dubrovnik on Tuesday.

The meeting was attended by Mayor Mato Franković, Deputy Mayor Jelka Tepšić, Director of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board Ana Hrnić, representatives of the largest hotel companies in the city and the Director of Commercial Affairs of Dubrovnik Airport, Ivan Maslać, reports Croatian Aviation. 

The meeting agreed on marketing cooperation and a strategy by which the City of Dubrovnik, the Tourist Board of the City, and the Dubrovnik Airport will work together on marketing, all in order to encourage airlines to reintroduce international routes to this city.

Unlike some other tourist destinations in Croatia, the 'Pearl of the Adriatic' is still (until the construction of the Peljesac Bridge) separated from the rest of Croatia, and due to the distance from many crucial markets, it has developed into an air destination.

Airlines that decide to launch routes to Dubrovnik will be provided with financial compensation, and the Mayor of the city has already announced that they are ready to participate in this marketing campaign. The City will co-finance flights with 14 million kuna.

It remains to be seen which airlines will apply in the future and be interested in co-financing the flights, but there is no doubt that there will be interest in an action of this kind.

We remind you that Dubrovnik is currently connected by air only to Zagreb, twice a day. Croatia Airlines has already reduced the number of flights operating on a daily basis, depending on the booking status of each flight.

Recall, Qatar Airways and American Airlines have canceled their seasonal services to the famous coastal city this year, and won't resume operations until 2021. The American Airlines Dubrovnik to Philadelphia flight was the first direct connection for 28 years between Croatia and the United States, a psychological as well as physical connection between the two countries. 

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March 11, 2020 - The City of Dubrovnik is monitoring the development of the situation and is looking at the effects that the spread of the virus has on the local economy, which relies mainly on tourism.

Dalmacija Danas reports that Dubrovnik Mayor Mato Frankovic and his associates held a meeting with Dubrovnik Tourist Board Director Ana Hrnic, members of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board Tourism Council and representatives of tourism-related professional associations on Tuesday, followed by a press conference to draw conclusions about the impact of the coronavirus in tourism as the most important economic branch in the Dubrovnik area.

Mayor Mato Frankovic expressed satisfaction with the way in which the national epidemic was approached nationally. He said the City of Dubrovnik is monitoring the situation and looking at the effects that the spread of the virus has on the local economy, which relies mostly on tourism.

“Our expert services have made rough estimates of the financial structure of revenues in the first six months, and they tell us that as a unit of local self-government, we will earn less than 30 million kuna in that period, but we are ready to adapt to any new situation,” the mayor said. He adds that this roughly estimated loss will be offset by surplus revenue generated in 2019, which will be spread over the May budget revision.

“After June, we will re-examine the situation and make further decisions regarding maintaining financial stability in the public sector,” the mayor announced, noting that we must be prepared for each scenario. He also expressed the readiness of the City to support the business people through various measures. If the situation with the coronavirus extended to the main season, it would also help businesses.

Director of the Tourist Board Ana Hrnic and a member of the Tourist Council Stanko Ljubic also spoke at the press conference.

“This situation is affecting tourism globally and we need to prepare ourselves as best we can. There will definitely be an impact on Dubrovnik tourism, but we must work to make the impact as mild as possible,” said Hrnic.

The Mayor concluded that the City of Dubrovnik fully respects the hierarchy of competences in the public health sense and will continue to act in accordance with the recommendations of the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia, according to the City pages.

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October 25, 2019 - Car sharing is recognized around the world as a quality alternative to ownership, and an excellent upgrade to the public transportation network. Thus, the city of Dubrovnik will become the first in Croatia to boast a 100% electric car-sharing system. 

Namely, HRTurizam reports that the first thirty Avant2Go vehicles will soon be deployed in seven locations around Dubrovnik.

It is estimated that one car in this system can replace more than ten privately-owned vehicles, and the value of this is particularly evident in cities such as Dubrovnik, in which transport infrastructure is hugely burdened. 

Grad Dubrovnik

“The city of Dubrovnik is systematically working to address the problems of traffic. In this regard, we have initiated numerous projects, primarily aimed at our fellow citizens. Among them is the first comprehensive smart parking in Croatia, for which we were awarded the first prize in the Smart City category this year. This is a sequel to the story. The car-sharing project has fully integrated into our vision of the city's development, which is why we have supported its implementation in Dubrovnik, which thus becomes a pilot project and once again takes the lead in introducing new technologies and smart solutions to raise the standard of living of its citizens. We believe that this service will help to unburden transport infrastructure and parking, which is currently one of our main focuses, and includes all other positive aspects that the City strives for, such as sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmental protection,” said Mato Franković, mayor of Dubrovnik.

Dubrovnik's new car-sharing service is called Avant2Go and is led by Avant car, the leading provider of this service in the region. 

"Electric mobility and co-sharing vehicles are currently the biggest global trends in the automotive industry. We believe that the 100% electric car-sharing Avant2Go will meet the needs of locals and their city. Among the main benefits of the system are noise-free driving and emissions, the availability of the service to a wide range of people, easy use of the service 24/7 via smartphones, and secured parking spaces,” said Matej Cer, founder of Avant car.

Grad Dubrovnik

The vehicles will be deployed in seven locations in the city from the second half of November at Dubrovnik Airport, Gruz Harbor, by the cable car leading to Srđ, the Public Garage, in Lapad, and at the Rixos and One Suite parking lots.

For starters, there will be thirty vehicles available, and mostly the Renault ZOEa models. The fleet and number of locations where the cars can be picked up and dropped off will increase in line with the needs of users, adds Avant. 

Car sharing is a service intended for Dubrovnik residents and their guests, since tourism destinations must systematically develop the diversity and complementarity of mobility services. 

"At the same time, Dubrovnik is one of the most demanding cities in terms of traffic optimization, but also a jewel of cultural heritage. Services such as car-sharing should, therefore, serve the development of mobility but also contribute to the sustainability of Dubrovnik. This project strategically links vital parts of the city to the most important traffic hubs. This makes Dubrovnik even stronger and more environmentally friendly with the rest of the world,” said Vladimir Markulin, director of Avant in Croatia.

The vehicles are booked, unlocked, and paid for with the mobile application. As an upgrade to public transport, car-sharing will contribute to relieving traffic in an environmentally friendly way, while giving citizens easy access to the roads without needing to own a car. 

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The City of Dubrovnik has launched a new service on the city administration's official website, where you can buy vouchers online for stopping in special traffic zones. 

This is yet another in the series of Smart City measures to better coordinate and manage traffic in the contact area of the old city core, which is most heavily burdened by crowds, reports HRTurizam on July 26, 2019.

Namely, with this service, travel agencies and vehicle owners will be able to buy online vouchers according to available periods, which will significantly accelerate the process on-site in special traffic zones. For vouchers purchased on the internet, employees will not have to create an invoice and pay for bus drivers and tourist guides.

Thus, this will reduce crowds, evenly allocate the burden on city entrances, and help to achieve sustainable traffic management. This service will also greatly facilitate the organization of agencies because they will immediately receive a bill for their fee, while the billing process is significantly shortened.

By the end of the year, online purchases will be an additional option with the current billing method, while by 2020, the service will be completely transferred to the online voucher format.

Recall, the decision to stop and park tourist buses and personal cars (8 + 1) in special traffic zones, regulates the stopping and parking of tourist buses and personal cars in the wider area around the historic core of the city, which includes Zagrebačka Street, Pile, Ploče, the area behind the city, Zlatni Potok and Sveti Jakov.

The fee when each individual vehicle stops, parks, and unloads passengers is as follows: for personal cars (8 + 1) 200 kuna, medium buses from 9 to 30 seats are 400 kuna, and for buses over 30 seats, it is 800 kuna. All fees are charged between 1 March to 30 November from 7:00 to 21:00.

You can find the vouchers in e-services of the City of Dubrovnik here.

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