October 20, 2020 - The Total Croatia Travel Info Viber chatbot and community helped thousands of tourists this summer. Meet the two women behind the scenes who made it tick. 

My biggest learning experience this year was about online communities. When Kresimir Macan suggested on the drive back from a trip to the realities of crossing the Croatian-Slovenian border during a pandemic in May that we start a Viber community, I assented without knowing exactly where this idea would lead. Two days later, I had to suffer the humiliation of asking one of his interns to download Viber to my desktop as I did not know how to. 

Within minutes, we were live as the TCTI Viber community was born (you need to download the app). The instant translation function meant that I was answering travel enquiries in Hungarian within the hour. By the end of the day, our infographic had been translated into 12 languages, thanks to the efforts of the new community, which was already 1,000 strong by the end of the day. 

After answering the same questions hundreds and hundreds of times, the idea of a Viber chatbot was born, and it has been incredibly efficient and easy to use. The official Andrija chatbot (in Croatian only) was rolled out with great fanfare and has about 100,000 users. By contrast, the TCTI Viber chatbot, which is in the tourist language of English, has amassed almost 30,000 subscribers so far. 

And while Macan and I were associated with the project in the media, it would not have happened without the great work and initiatives of two remarkable women, Jelena Šipušić Jurčić and Aleksandra Đermanović. Both were interview by Women in Adria about the Viber chatbot and community recently, and please find a full translation of the interview below. 

These Women are Part of the Core Team Behind the Viber Community Which Helped Save the Tourist Season

For business to function well, the most important thing to match is – the characters. And with our members, Jelena Šipušić Jurčić and Aleksandra Đermanović, they certainly coincided. And not only that, they complement each other perfectly! Both are sparky and cheerful, each in their own way - Jelena can’t stop talking about some new app she just imagined, and Alexandra only needs a few sentences to start coming up with new ideas and directions.

Their collaboration began when Jelena needed new ideas for her brands developed by her company, and Aleksandra was looking for a quality development partner. One conversation led to another, joint brainstorming was more and more productive, and then they got the opportunity to work together on a completely new project – Total Croatia Travel Info community (TCTI community) on Viber!

How did you meet?

Jelena: We were connected by Women in Adria, we „clicked“ and started working together. Aleksandra and her ingenious team do all the creative work for 4APP and our brands, and during one real women's coffee, the idea of performing together on Viber-related projects was born.

Aleksandra: As an agency, Mediacor is in charge of Viber's business development in the Croatian market. In this regard, we are constantly looking for quality partners who would be suitable for cooperation with Viber. When having a coffee together, we realized that Jelena’s team has the ideal experience and expertise that can help brands during their presence on Viber as a communication channel.

How did you come up with the idea of the Total Croatia Travel Info community?

Jelena: The idea for a chatbot that will help educate tourists who are interested in coming to Croatia was born on that coffee. Given that Paul Bradbury and Krešimir Macan with their team of people, at that time, diligently answered questions from tourists within the TCTI community 24/7, it was logical to get involved in the story and help them in any way we know. I offered them a chatbot, and Alexandra my creative services.

Aleksandra: A special sticker package was designed for the TCTI community, in English, which promoted Croatia as a destination and was available on a global level within the Viber platform – in all countries of the world where Viber is present.

What are the possibilities of using chatbots?

Alexandra: Chatbot is most effective when it helps users solve problems that happen often. In the case of the TCTI community, these are practical issues of tourists who have started to follow a certain pattern over time. To reduce the pressure on community managers, a bot was created that gave users the answers they needed in a very short time, and they were concerned about the technical details of coming to Croatia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jelena: 4APP primarily deals with the development and implementation of business systems, which proved to be an excellent background since we can integrate Viber chatbots with many systems and, of course, provide consulting services on business processes. The applications of this type of chatbot are practically unlimited… When you mention a chatbot, people usually first associate it with a boring web bot that attacks users with questions as soon as they visit a particular website.

This is not the case with Viber – bots are there to help users, answer questions, or point you to the right place to get answers. It is possible to connect them to CRM systems, ERP systems, internal portals, websites, retrieve information from open data portals... And all to give answers in one place, mobile, via Viber.

Based on this experience, what are your recommendations for our tourism?

Alexandra: Follow markets and trends, innovate, and scale.

Jelena: Modernization is always a good direction when it comes to attracting tourists. Provide them with as much information as possible in the simplest possible way and get them interested in trying something new in Croatia that they may not have planned.

Where else can this model be applied?

Jelena: This solution is extremely easy to use for the end-user, and that is the most important thing. The applicability of the model is, therefore, in all segments where the goal is to quickly and efficiently inform users. This is perhaps most pronounced in tourism, but why shouldn't the Croatian real estate scene inform its potential buyers about the opportunities that are opening up? This is just an example, but the possibilities are numerous.

Aleksandra: This is extremely applicable for tourism as a whole and this approach can be applied by individual renters (in a sense of gathering their regular guests in the community, regularly sending them information, and having a more personal relationship with them) to the Ministry of Tourism or tourist boards who want to reach existing and potential guests.

Your view on women’s networking and why is it needed?

Aleksandra: The most important thing is to have a good fit – to complement each other, not to enter each other's territory, and go towards a common goal. Practical – elements and bases of every meaningful relationship.

Jelena: Networking is necessary for every business to be successful, there is no difference for men or women. Maybe we just need to motivate the female part a little more because we often get overwhelmed with tasks and forget about the social side of work. The more people we know, the more we talk to each other, the more ideas we have. So more socializing, please.

You can learn more about chatbot possibilities with Jelena on the official 4APP website.

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ZAGREB, October 18, 2020 - Before we decide on an important step in life, we first Google it, and in short, this is the principle on which a new scientific discipline is based: digital migration - a model for monitoring emigration through social networks.

As reported by Dalmatinski portal, the result of extensive studies completely coincides with the official data on migration, and they also provide much more information on the trends according to which more exoduses from Croatia await us.

Bewerbung, or job application in German, was searched as often this year as in Croatian.

The new scientific discipline of digital demography predicts migration trends based on what is being searched. Ireland is no longer "in", but the coronavirus and the lifting of employment restrictions in some countries, such as Austria, are bringing new trends.

"Those counties that are geographically closest to Austria, such as Međimurje or Karlovac, are most often searched for in Austria, in general, living conditions in Austria, which is again a strong indication of a new wave of emigration, probably this time to Austria", said Tado Jurić. professor of history at the Croatian Catholic University.

Even though the search engine is not lying, few have admitted to us that they have googled outside of Croatia while looking for a job.

Every fifth job seeker in Croatia is looking for a job abroad, of which 80 percent of them googled jobs in Germany.

Ten days after major corruption scandals, job searches outside of Croatia intensified, and it is not only the unemployed who are looking for a job abroad.

"We saw that based on the time when these terms are searched, it is before the working day, somewhere around half past six and around 3 pm", Juric explained.

According to statistics from the German Central Bureau of Statistics, more than 400,000 Croats live and work there, and once they do, Croatian citizens search for language learning and divorce the most.

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ZAGREB, October 18, 2020 - Over the past 24 hours, there have 819 new cases of the coronavirus infection in Croatia and eight fatalities, and the number of active cases now stands at 5,164, the national COVID-19 response team said on Sunday.

There are 548 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, including 32 who are on ventilators.

Since February 25, when the first case was confirmed in Croatia, 25,580 people have contracted the novel virus, 363 of them have died and 20,053 have recovered, including 491 over the past 24 hours.

Currently, 21,148 people are self-isolating.

To date, 397,000 people have been tested for coronavirus, 4,948 of whom in the last 24 hours.

October 18, 2020 - St. Catherine's Specialty Hospital is the first in Croatia to provide quick testing for COVID-19, which gives results in 15 to 30 minutes.

HRTurizam reports that the SARS-CoV-2 antigen test is an extremely valuable diagnostic test with high specificity (99.68%) and enters the family of tests performed in direct contact with the patient and for which results are obtained shortly after testing.

What is crucial and a game-changer, especially for the entire tourism sector, is that test results are obtained within 15 to 30 minutes.

Jadranka Primorac, St. Catherine's Specialty Hospital: Rapid testing was done to relieve the entire health system

Due to the high pressure on the entire health system, rapid testing that gives results in 30 minutes or less, depending on the number of simultaneous tests and the number of professional staff, will improve the overall situation and the pressure on health facilities.

“Rapid testing was done with this goal in mind, for emergency diagnosis and triage to relieve the entire health system, it is also suitable for people who have been in contact with an infected person or have clinical symptoms. It is a test of the pharmaceutical company Roche, which put the test on the market at the end of September," points out Jadranka Primorac, member of the Management Board, and adds that testing is also good for quickly testing tourists at airports.

The test price is 350 kuna, and Primorac adds that a quick COVID-19 test is done at St. Catherine's in Zagreb, in a separate unit, following all security protocols.

"We are also provided with access to the National Database so that in case of a positive test, we can enter all positive patients in the SARS-CoV-2 database," emphasizes Jadranka Primorac.

When we talk about the tourism sector, fast testing is certainly suitable for airports and all passengers who want to get tested quickly and have a negative test, which is an obligation to enter most countries.

The St. Catherine's points out that the prices of the tests are 350 kuna, and for all inquiries about the tests, you can contact them HERE.

By the way, this is a product of the pharmaceutical company Roche, the Elecsys® SARS-CoV-2 Antigen test, which according to official information from the Roche website, is a very accurate laboratory immunological test for in vitro qualitative detection of the nucleocapsid antigen SARS-CoV-2.

“We are aware that governments and health systems are under great pressure to increase the ability to test for SARS-CoV-2 to manage the spread of the virus effectively. The high-volume antigen test is a valuable addition to the portfolio to help diagnose SARS-CoV-2. The ability to quickly and correctly determine if someone has SARS-CoV-2 is crucial to inform patient management decisions and to combat the spread of COVID-19. Roche remains committed to supporting governments, healthcare professionals, and patients in the fight against this pandemic with the help of our diagnostic solutions," said Thomas Schinecker, CEO of Roche Diagnostics.

Immunological test Elecsys SARS-CoV-2 Antigen works on all immunochemical analyzers that are widely available worldwide. These fully automated systems can provide test results in about 18 minutes for a single test (excluding sample collection, transport, and preparation time), with up to 300 tests per hour from a single analyzer. The aforementioned laboratory-automated antigen test allows for reduced costs and errors due to the removal of manual handling, as well as fast turnover and high throughput, according to official Roche information.

Rapid testing is a major challenge for the global recovery of tourism and a key element for air traffic activation.

Regarding the standardization of security protocols and the introduction of contactless thermal camera technology at airports, final negotiations are already underway under the auspices of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and it is a matter of months, if not weeks when they will be agreed. On the other hand, a couple of global companies from the USA and Israel have also released quick tests for COVID-19, and now Roche has joined them.

What is certain is that rapid testing will be made possible globally in the coming months, which is important for the tourism sector.

To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

As Morski writes on the 17th of October, 2020, as of October the 15th, 2020, another "wine" financial year ended. Out of the total available 10.8 million euros for 2020 within the National Wine Aid Programme, the Agency for Payments in Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development paid out 10.1 million euros to Croatian winemakers, which means that the percentage of Croatian wine envelope utilisation is higher than ever before, standing at almost 94 percent, reports the Ministry of Agriculture.

From the first programming period until now, the coverage has been expanded, ie the number of measures available to users of the Croatian wine envelope has significantly increased. The implementation framework and procedures have been simplified so that the approval and contracting process can be faster and easier. More specifically, in the new programming period, in addition to the existing three measures, a new measure of Information in EU member states was introduced, as was an upgrade of the existing Promotion measure on third country markets, with an aid intensity of 80 percent of the maximum eligible costs.

In the measure Restructuring and Conversion of vineyards, the aid intensity has been increased from the previous 50 percent up to 75 percent of the level of maximum eligible costs, the compensation of loss of income for vineyards has been introduced for a period of 3 years.

In the extremely challenging period of 2020 in which we're still knee deep, and due to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, two new intervention measures were introduced: The Distillation of wine in crisis cases and Support for the crisis storage of wine, both of which are now nearing completion. At the same time in this period, due to special circumstances and disturbances caused by the pandemic, all measures were increased, as were their respective aid intensities. Despite all of the less than favourable circumstances, the new measures, the successful implementation of contracted projects and the processing of applications have contributed to the higher utilisation of the Croatian wine envelope when compared to all previous years.

Through the National Programme for Assistance to the Wine Sector, an annual fund of 11 million euros has been provided from the European Fund and the State Budget of the Republic of Croatia in the planned five-year programming period, ie a total of more than 55 million euros for development projects in the wine and viticulture sector.

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ZAGREB, October 17, 2020 - A total of 1,096 new coronavirus cases and 10 related deaths have been registered in Croatia in the last 24 hours, the national coronavirus response team reported on Saturday.

The number of active cases is 4,844 and 530 of them are hospitalised, including 28 who are on ventilators, while 20,389 people are currently in self-isolation.

Since February 25, when the first case was confirmed in Croatia, 24,761 people have contracted the novel virus, of whom 355 have died and 19,562 have recovered, including 475 in the last 24 hours.

A total of 392,052 people have been tested to date, including 6,980 in the last 24 hours.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 16th of October, 2020, while thousands of scientists around the world are still working on developing a vaccine against the new coronavirus, as well as developing drugs to help deal with the more serious symptoms of COVID-19, some companies have already embarked on building the capacities needed to produce vaccines. One Samobor company is among them.

The American company Moderna, which is developing its own vaccine for COVID-19, mRNA-1273, has already started strengthening its production capacities. In partnership with the Swiss company Lonza, they agreed to produce the vaccine at two locations - in the United States and much closer to home here in Europe in Switzerland.

As it is expected that Moderna's vaccine, which is currently in the third and final phase of testing, will get the green light for production by the end of the year, it has been agreed to start expanding production capacities, according to a report from Zimo.

The value of the project is estimated at 210 million Swiss francs (1.499 billion kuna), and the construction of the plant in the Swiss city of Vispo should be completed within eight months, instead of two years which is otherwise the practice.

''Everything will be ready for the production of the first doses in December,'' assures construction site manager Torsten Schmidt. Three production lines will be installed at the plant, which will be able to produce a total of about 300 million doses of vaccine per year.

However, the real news, at least in Croatian terms, is that the Samobor company Klimaoprema was chosen as the main designer and contractor, which, in cooperation with the company for the development of the CRB production process from the USA, will be responsible for the entire project, until it is handed over to the owner at the end.

Although the details of the project itself are still inaccessible to the public, it is known that the plant being constructed by the aforementioned Samobor company will cover an area of ​​approximately 2,500 m2 of CNC to C class.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 16th of October, 2020, we currently have almost 500 coronavirus patients in various hospitals with 3.5 thousand infected people. If we continue at this rate next week, we will reach 700 patients in hospitals and about six thousand infected because some of them will have gotten over the illness. The Croatian hospital system could find itself in trouble if this trend continues.

''These figures can't be tolerated by the Croatian hospital system without running into significant problems. A week later, we could easily reach a thousand hospitalised people and nine thousand infected people,'' said Dr. Ozren Polasek for Jutarnji list.

Polasek is otherwise a professor at the Department of Public Health and head of the Centre for Global Health at the Medical Faculty of the University of Split, he is also a valued member of the Scientific Council for Combating the Coronavirus Pandemic of the Government of the Republic of Croatia.

In short, carrying on this way means we could get to numbers by October the 30th, 2020, that the Croatian hospital system quite simply can’t stand. The situation for medical staff isn't ideal either.

The Sestre Milosrdnice Clinical Hospital Centre currently has 124 health workers out of operation. 30 of them are positive for coronavirus, and 95 of them are in self-isolation. 250 people were tested at the Sveti Duh Clinical Hospital, and 11 positive results have been received so far, and a dozen more positive ones are expected today. There are 48 employees of that facility now in self-isolation.

The hospital in Split can function without difficulties until the number of hospitalised persons with coronavirus exceeds 50, and now they have about 30 patients. In Medjimurje, where the number of patients is growing relentlessly, the situation is satisfactory so far, but that could all alter very quickly with the pace of the spread of infection.

A total of 34 medical workers who tested positive for the new coronavirus and 64 of them who are in self-isolation were the balance sheet in Osijek-Baranja, Vukovar-Srijem and Pozega-Slavonia counties as of the 15th of this month.

''The number of patients and those in self-isolation isn't yet too large and we therefore have no problems with the organisation of work. There will probably be more patients, but I hope that the numbers won't be so large that we can't organise everything,'' said doc. Dr. Zeljko Zubcic, the director of KBC Osijek.

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October 17, 2020 - Croatia national team player Andrej Kramaric received great recognition for his effective performances at the beginning of the new football season in Germany. 

The Hoffenheim striker and 2018 World Cup finalist was named the best player in the official selection of the Bundesliga in September!

Kramaric scored five goals in the first two rounds of the new championship - three against Cologne and two against Bayern - and overcame Gnabry, Sane, Kimmich, Füllkrug, and Kalajdžić in the selection. Before the first round, he also scored two goals in the German Cup against Chemnitzer.

With the mentioned five goals, he almost reached the record of Gerd Müller, who scored six in two introductory rounds of the 1977/1978 season.

He continued his excellent form in October, with a league goal against Eintracht. During the national team break, he came off the bench to secure Croatia's victory against Sweden in the Nations League.

Unfortunately, it was announced on Friday that the Croatia national team representative was infected with the coronavirus upon his return to Germany from the national team campaign.

"Two players who participated in the national team matches tested positive for COVID-19 upon their return to Germany. None of them have been in contact with the rest of the team, and they are now in self-isolation in their homes and are asymptomatic," Hoffenheim announced without naming the players.

It was later found out and confirmed by the Croatian Football Federation that one of the positive players was the Croatian striker Andrej Kramaric. Another infected player at the club is Kasim Adams.

Kramaric is one of nine Hoffenheim players who joined their national teams over the past 10 days.

Earlier on Friday, Spanish first division team Osasuna announced that Croatia national team player, Ante Budimir, had returned to the club positive for the coronavirus.

"The competent epidemiological service assessed that Croatia teammates of Kramaric and Budimir and the members of the staff were not risky contacts and that it is not necessary to prescribe mandatory self-isolation to any member of the national team," HNS announced.

Source: HNS

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October. 17, 2020 - German TV praises Istria, as the region has managed to maintain its status as a corona-safe destination in Europe.

Index.hr reports that German RTL praised Istria, calling it a green oasis in a mostly red Europe, and tried to find the secret of the success of this Croatian region in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

RTL stated that about 210,000 people live in the Istrian peninsula and that by far the largest part of Istria belongs to Croatia, and a smaller part to Slovenia and Italy. They said that Istria, if you look at the corona map of Europe, is a green oasis as far as COVID-19 is concerned, because from the beginning of the pandemic until October 15, it had a total of 793 recorded infections, and in May and June it sometimes did not have a single new case. 

RTL added that in the early phase of the epidemic, Istria requested a special position and took different measures than other parts of Croatia.

"Given the fact that we are very close to Italy and that a large number of people from Istria go to work in Italy every day, we have been monitoring the situation in Italy since the beginning of February and preparing in time for the possible spread of the infection. We have already taken appropriate measures. Eight days before the National Crisis Headquarters introduced the measures, we restricted free movement in Istria," RTL quoted Denis Ivosevic, director of the Istria County Tourist Board.

One of the explanations for the successful fight against the coronavirus is the serious adherence to measures during the summer months. When the number of COVID-19 infections in Croatia increased in the summer, Istria reacted immediately, said RTL. Istria introduced the mandatory wearing of masks in all stores, with mandatory hand disinfection. Fifteen customers were allowed within 100 square meters in trade. It was similar in the markets, where masks were also mandatory. Measures were also applied on the beach: the deckchairs were spaced apart and disinfected regularly.

Seasonal workers coming to Croatia from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia had to immediately go into 14-day quarantine, and Istria canceled all events and developed new concepts during the summer season.

"We have invested a lot in making the holiday in Istria safe for everyone," said Ivošević.

RTL concluded that tourists and Istrians appear to have acted responsibly and adhered to measures to preserve their small green oasis in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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