November 17, 2021 - The Trogir brand strategy 'Marked by Masters,' officially presented in November 2019, has been recognized by UNESCO as a positive cultural tourism example. 

At the end of 2019, the city of Trogir made a big step forward by presenting a new branding strategy, slogan, and visual identity, which was complemented by signage in the city, promotional materials, and a new website, jointly created by the city and the tourist board, reports HRTurizam.

Thus, Trogir became the first destination on the coast and the first city in Croatia, which began branding at such a serious and professional level. The project is called Marked by Masters, and you can read more about it on TCN HERE.

The Trogir brand strategy was recognized as a positive practice by UNESCO. Namely, on its official website, UNESCO writes about the Trogir branding project in the context of its importance for the sustainable development of the destination. "The new branding strategy of the city based on cultural values and community participation aims to increase the attractiveness of Trogir as a destination for cultural tourism," says UNESCO.

This is further confirmation of the value and importance of the project started two years ago, which will be intensively developed in the next five to ten years. It is necessary to fully implement it according to the experience of international cities, said the city of Trogir, adding that they are excited that UNESCO has confirmed their work by sharing the case study for the City of Trogir, authored by the Fabular agency.

"In the Middle Ages, world-class masters worked in Trogir, such as masters Radovan, Nikola Firentinski, Muscardel, Andrea Alessi, and Duknović, creating masterpieces, but also leaving smaller, detailed traces in the old town. The challenge was to unite the city's masters with "medieval graffiti" and games carved into the stone, like chess and merel, which we did by creating a story that called for discovering the traces of masters in every corner of this beautiful city."

According to UNESCO, if the project is fully implemented in accordance with the described plans, the initiative could contribute to sustainable development and the UNWTO (Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals) sustainable development goals. Trogir has been on the UNESCO list since 1997. 

Follow our dedicated travel page for more information on Trogir, Marked by Masters, and much more.

February 9, 2021 – By introducing an interactive mobile application for full budget transparency, the City of Trogir will soon join the Croatian cities of Split and Bjelovar and the municipality of Omišalj and become one of the most transparent local governments in Croatia.

Together with the Science and Society Synergy Institute, the City of Trogir signed an agreement to introduce the city budget's full transparency. The contract represents the first phase of a project to create a simple and visually attractive application that would give citizens a different budget view.

With the application, citizens would have an insight into ongoing or planned projects, the performance of previous budgets and the budget for next year, or the supplementary budget for the current year. The application would provide an overview of the current budget. At the same time, additional options will compare the plan with the performance and a comparison with previous years' budgets.

Trogir / Photo: Romulić and Stojčić

Trogir to become the most desirable small town on the coast

The City of Trogir wants to bring concrete budget items closer to the citizens through clear and simple numerical indicators and through aggregate indicators that are difficult to understand. They want to educate and sensitize citizens for certain types of strategically important projects. In other words, citizens would get an insight into what exactly their money is spent on.

"Through this project, we continue to introduce smart practices. The goal is to show how city money is managed and involve citizens in the City Administration's work as much as possible. So far, we have done this through participatory budgeting, 'And you are asked!', a project through which citizens themselves directly decide on spending part of the budget money. Last year, the Institute of Public Finance gave us grade five for transparency for the first time. We have also published an online register of city property, and with this application, we are going a step further," said Mayor of Trogir Ante Bilić.

The average assessment of Croatian cities' transparency for 2020 is 4.5, compared to the previous 2019 when it was 4.3. In 2019, Trogir received a grade of 4, and in 2020, thanks to the publication of all five city documents required for insight into transparency, a rate of 5. The number of Croatian cities of excellence increased from 65 in 2019 to as many as 87 in 2020, a positive trend.

Budget transparency of Croatian cities and municipalities / Institute of Public Finance

"Budget transparency is our obligation and one part of the smart city strategy we will develop this year. This is a necessary level of development planning by which we want to make Trogir the most desirable small town on the coast in every sense. Precisely such projects by which we raise democratic standards are a guarantee that we will never end up in the problems we were in three years ago," said Bilić.

Striving for complete city transparency

This interactive visualization of the budget will be available to citizens in two months. It will be implemented by the Science and Society Synergy Institute based in Čakovec, headed by Vuk Vuković.

"The application we will create for Trogir offers an in-depth and visually attractive presentation of all revenues and expenditures up to the fourth level of the budget, according to the functional and economic classification. This data, the functional classification up to the fourth level of spending, has not been given to city councilors at budget hearings who receive budget expenditures up to a maximum of the third level. For example, the fourth level means that you can enter within each city's budget user – kindergartens, schools, museums, libraries – and see who spent how much on salaries, maintenance, what they bought, etc. The third level gives only the total amount received by which user, without going into details. With this presentation, citizens have a more detailed insight into city spending than city politicians," Vuković explained.

Ante Bilić and Vuk Vuković / Photo: Trogir.hr

Following an interactive budget guide, the next step will be a detailed overview of all budget accounts. Citizens would have an insight into each transaction from the budget, from public procurement to entertainment expenses. Then there will be complete transparency of the city towards users.

Bjelovar was the first to introduce transparency application

Thus, Trogir will be one of only three cities in Croatia and Southeast Europe with a completely transparent budget. A similar practice has been introduced by the Croatian cities of Bjelovar and Split and the municipality of Omišalj, which also introduced applications for insight into the city budget. The City of Bjelovar presented a similar application in February 2019. Vuković also helped them, making them the first most transparent city in Croatia, for which they were awarded that year.

"Bjelovar has thus embarked on a unique undertaking in Croatia and this part of Europe, which is to raise transparency to a level that has not been introduced in any public authority so far, to raise the quality of the City Administration's work and strengthen public confidence," said Vuković at the time, as reported from Bjelovar.

Bjelovar Pavilion / Photo: Bjelovar.hr

Bjelovar's positive example was followed by the municipality of Omišalj, which introduced the transparency application at the end of March 2020. The largest Croatian city on the coast – Split – also decided to do so, and neighboring Trogir took over its practice.

Namely, the citizens' right to access information held by public authorities is guaranteed by the Republic of Croatia's Constitution. Therefore, in addition to the moral, the public authority also has a legal duty to provide information on public money spending. However, while in developed democracies such transparency is considered the standard and, for example, all individual transactions from the US federal budget of 1.5 billion dollars are available to the public through an interactive Internet search engine, in Croatia it has never existed before, nor are public authorities considered this possibility.

This trend seems to be changing in Croatia. The transparency of Croatian cities is presented in an interactive map of the Institute of Public Finance.

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March 16, 2020 - Given the development of the COVID-19 virus spreading, following the instruction of the Civil Protection Staff of Split-Dalmatia County and the conclusions of the Civil Protection Headquarters of the City of Trogir on March 12, 2020, the Mayor of Trogir Ante Bilić passed a decision, which we are transmitting in its entirety.

1.) It is recommended that all citizens of the City of Trogir make the least possible use of the services of the Health Center - Trogir Branch to preserve the integrity of the medical system and to unnecessarily expose themselves and other risks of transmission of the infection. In case of symptoms of respiratory illness (cough, sneezing, sore throat, fever, shortness of breath), consult a doctor of your choice. In case of emergency, call 112 or epidemiologist for the City of Trogir on 0911512021.

2.) Institutions owned by the City of Trogir, the Tourist Board of the City of Trogir will not organize direct work until further notice.

Temporary closure of the permanent exhibition area of the Museum of the City of Trogir for visitors, libraries and reading rooms of the City Library of Trogir is ordered, followed by the space of civil society organizations, associations and communities of associations, as well as spaces used by these associations for regular activities.

3.) The work of the Trogir kindergarten is interrupted, except the kindergarten "Maslačak" at Kneza Trpimira 41, which will be on duty for the duration of the ordered measures.

4.) All sports facilities, gymnasiums, sports fields and playgrounds of the City of Trogir will be closed.

5.) The City Administration of the City of Trogir will cancel receptions, and contact will be possible only by phone, mail or e-mail. Receptions of foreign delegations as well as travel of employees from outside the Republic of Croatia are postponed. 

6.) Officers and employees of the city government, institutions and city companies are obliged to adhere to the recommended hygiene and precautionary measures, to avoid close contact with persons with respiratory symptoms, to maintain the hygiene of the environment and the workplace in terms of cleaning and disinfecting work surfaces and objects, ventilating the workspace and recommend the same to citizens/parties with whom they are in communication.

This decision can also be read on the web pages and bulletin board of the City of Trogir, as well as city institutions and companies.

Source: Trogirski Portal

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