The preparations for the third edition of the 3T– Tourism, Travel and Tech conference are in full swing. The central theme of this year's 3T conference is smart tourism. The third 3T will be held on March 12 at the Kaptol Boutique Cinema in Zagreb.

The conference will feature Miikka Rosendahl as one of the keynote speakers. He will explain how Helsinki won the prestigious title of the Virtual Capital of the World and what Croatian tourist destinations can learn from their experiences. The panel discussion Smart Marketing in Tourism – What REALLY Brings Bookings? will be moderated by Ilija Brajković, and will include Robert Petković, Analytics Lead, Bruketa&Žinić&Gray; Petar Milevoj, Head of Digital Marketing, Maistra; and Tomislav Kosir, Internet Marketing Manager, Hotel Dubrovnik.

Which advertising channels are best for sales? What is producing results and what is not? How can we, and should we, fight Booking and other major players? The conference brings experts on four levels who will share their experiences and give tips on how to do marketing and advertising in tourism.

Natalija Havidić from the Ministry of Tourism will present the project of digitization of public services in the tourism sector.

Another panel discussion, Croatian Tourism in a New Technology Environment: The Limits of Growth, will be moderated by Željko Ivanković, an independent consultant. Although it is the most important local sector, Croatian tourism is lagging behind its competition. This has been established by the study Key Issues of Sustainability of Croatian Tourism, developed by the Polazišta i Perspektive think tank. The reasons for this lag are numerous, but one of the most important is that the development of tourism has not been managed as in competitive countries but has largely evolved chaotically, and the growth is primarily sustained by positive global economic trends. New technologies also influence changes in the tourism offer and demand, the study has established. Their development is not in the local hands, but their application and influence are, at least to an extent. According to analyses, the emergence of new technologies has partly affected Croatia’s lag behind the competition, by neglecting the infrastructure for services for which new technologies have increased demand (festivals, apartments ...). How can the application of new technologies make it possible to reduce the lag behind the competition, and what kinds of application are detrimental to this goal? This will be discussed by the roundtable Croatian Tourism in a New Technology Environment: The Limits of Growth.

Among interesting lectures, we highlight The Mobile Payment Opportunities for Tourism-Focused Businesses by Sara Rasmussen; Digital Tourism Transformation: How to Achieve More? by Karlo Guštin; Distribution of Excursions in Few Clicks by Tatjana Peček; and Roadtrip with Millennials by Krešimir Jusup and Ana Martić.

In addition to this, a number of different lectures, presentations and discussions are planned.

“Helsinki recently won the European Capital of Smart Tourism competition, and I am particularly pleased that we will hear from our guests from the Finnish capital about their experiences in using the technology to enrich their tourist offer. When we decided to organize the first event which would link two of the most successful Croatian industries – IT and tourism – in 2017, it was a somewhat risky move. The excellent response to this first 3T conference has shown us that we have struck a chord with wishes of the experts and the audience,” said Oleg Maštruko, the director of the 3T Conference.

The third 3T will be held on March 12 at the Kaptol Boutique Cinema in Zagreb. The number of participants last year was 280, and the same number is expected this year.

More information and registrations are available here.

A report from the last year’s 3T can be found here.

More news about Croatian tourism can be found in the Travel section.

ZAGREB, February 25, 2019 - The Zagreb-based IN2 software company has signed a contract on delivery, implementation and maintenance of healthcare information systems in healthcare institutions in Saudi Arabia, the company said in a press release on Monday without revealing the value of the signed contract.

With over 40 such institutions in Croatia and in the world in which it introduced modern information systems, IN2 is continuing with its strong export of this solution, strengthening its presence on regional and world markets.

"The Green Cube healthcare information system, specially adjusted to their needs, will be implemented in institutions of long-term care and home healthcare. After the first phase covering Riyadh, where completion of implementation is expected by the end of the year, the network will expand to five other cities in Saudi Arabia and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)," the press release said.

IN2 joins forces with Spanish partner Tich Consulting Torrevieja in this project. The partners were selected by Saudi investor Hosna Medical Care Company. Belgian Acalis, global healthcare operator bringing new and modern healthcare services to Saudi Arabia, also participated in the decision.

This is the first project of IN2 Health Sector in the countries of Gulf Cooperation Council, coming after successful expansion to the markets of Azerbaijan and Vietnam.

More news on the Croatian IT industry can be found in the Business section.

ZAGREB, February 22, 2019 - The developers of the Pago mobile payment application, thanks to which people can pay their bills online in a centralized manner, has announced its plans to expand to Croatia and Poland, the Romanian Insider portal said on Friday.

The Romanian startup also plans to relocate to Poland, in the Huge Thing high tech business accelerator, where it was accepted together with nine other startups, Wall-street.ro said.

Pago has recently introduced paid subscriptions for users who pay more than five bills per month through the app. The lowest subscription is 1.07 euro per month, for those who pay up to eight bills or invoices, while the fee for clients with higher volumes is 3.2 euro per month.

Those paying up to four invoices per month can keep using the application for free, and they account for some 75% of the current users.

Pago has 110,000 active users who have paid more than 14 million euro in bills. The app was downloaded 250,000. It records 5,500 payments for more than 90 integrated suppliers a day.

More news about the IT sector, as well as the solutions for mobile payments in Croatia can be found in the Business section.

Croatian Telecom has one of the ten fastest mobile networks in the world and the second fastest in the Deutsche Telekom group, the operator announced. This is the result of an independent measurement project, the so-called P3 certificate. HT has won 948 points out of a maximum of 1,000. This is the best result in Croatia among all the measurements which the P3 organisation has conducted so far, reports Poslovni.hr on January 29, 2019.

Boris Drilo, a member of the company’s Management Board and the managing director for Tech and Information Technologies, was understandably pleased.

"This is the result of the announced one billion kuna investments in the mobile network and proof that the investment has provided tangible results for our users since now an independent survey has confirmed that Croatian Telecom has the fastest mobile network in Croatia," said Drilo. He added that he was especially proud of the result given that P3 has recently made its rating criteria stricter.

The survey involved more detailed measurements in towns, evaluating the quality of the network on local roads and, for the first time, crowdsourcing the collection of data. This means that the most widely used internet services in Croatia were covered by the survey, integrating part of the code into their sites and sending data on user load speeds to P3.

"This result is a consequence of the modernisation of 600 base stations throughout Croatia. By the end of 2019, we will modernise the remaining 1400 stations,” said Drilo. He explained that the ultimate goal was to be able to offer a gigabit mobile internet.

“We already offer speeds above 200 Mbps in the 4G network, which can be used by all those who own the latest flagship phones, meaning those which came out during the fall and this winter. Our network is ready to offer speeds of up to 800 Mbps. However, we are still waiting for such users. I can honestly say that Croatian Telecom has a network which offers higher speeds than today's mobiles phones and other devices can support,” concluded Drilo.

Translated from Poslovni.hr (reported by Bernard Ivezić).

More news on Croatian Telecom can be found in the Business section.

The global consulting company Deloitte, the first Croatian open source platform developer, Omega Software, and the only major Croatian software company created by the merger, IT Systems - New Technologies, are competing for an unprecedented technology project in the government sector in Croatia. On Friday, the City of Zagreb received three bids from these companies which want to draft the blockchain technology application strategy for the capital, the first such strategy in Croatia, reports Večernji List on January 29, 2019.

The city estimated the project costs at 1.5 million kuna. Although the price was not the only criterion, the difference in prices offered are substantial. The lowest bid was submitted by Deloitte, at 965,090 kuna plus the VAT. IT Systems - New Technologies want 1.47 million kuna plus the VAT, while Omega Software asks for 1.48 million kuna.

Olivera Majić, deputy mayor of Zagreb, briefly explained that the city must proceed with the implementation of the blockchain. "This is part of a wider transformation of business processes in the city government which is proceeding very well.”

The tender documentation explains that the capital has noted a problem which will force all towns in Croatia, but also the central government itself, to implement the blockchain technology in the near future. It claims that, without blockchain, it is impossible to keep any official documents for a period longer than five years or possibly ten. And the law often demands documents be kept longer. That is not a problem with paper documents but is with the digital ones.

The City of Zagreb warns that electronic documents are protected by e-signature or e-stamp, or with a form of a digital certificate, and all digital certificates have a short and limited validity period. As an example, the Fina certificates are valid for two years, and AKD's for five. After the validity of these certificates expires, the credibility of each e-document can be called into question. The city authorities believe that blockchain is the solution.

The decision on the winner of the tender will be made in the next three months, and the deadline for the strategy to be drafted is four months after the winning bid is selected. This means that by autumn, Zagreb will become the first town in Croatia and the first administration body in the country to have its own blockchain strategy.

The tender documentation also states that blockchain will not only be used for archiving but also for monitoring business processes, and there is a possibility that it will be applied in a range of other activities as well.

Translated from Večernji List (reported by Bernard Ivezić).

More Zagreb news can be found in our special section.

The Croatian Ministry of Finance is working on a legal regulation that would force foreign online betting sites to legalise their business in Croatia or cease operations. This would include all international betting sites, which offer online gambling services to Croatian gaming enthusiasts, reports Jutarnji List on January 27, 2019.

For a country like Croatia, whose public finances are always in trouble, it sounds unbelievable that the government is not taxing an industry worth up to two billion kuna a year, which is the estimated value of the online betting business in Croatia. The problem of the non-taxing of online gambling providers is not just a consequence of the reluctance of tax authorities to deal with this issue. The control and blocking of web betting sites should also include other institutions, such as Carnet and the State Attorney's Office, and even the courts which are the only ones that can enforce the prohibition of business activities.

At the level of entrepreneurial freedom, what betting sites are doing is similar to tactics used by Amazon, Apple or Google on the European Union market, where they try to take advantage of under-regulation, risking enormous fines. Amazon, for example, recently paid 282 million euro in penalties for tax evasion in Luxembourg, following a European Commission's action against it.

Advocates of the current situation in the sports betting market believe that fees for betting and related winnings are already too high and unjust, so it is quite acceptable for some players to turn to online betting. In addition to the manipulative costs of five per cent of the amount paid, which legal betting agents must charge for all tickets, players pay a minimum of ten per cent tax on their payouts, which increases up to a maximum of 30 per cent of winnings of over 500,000 kuna.

The usual reason for the inclusion of internet service is that it breaks state monopoly in the market, but in the case of sports betting this is not true since the two largest legal betting chains in Croatian market, Super Sport and Hattrick-PSK, are privately-owned.

There is also another issue. While gamblers using the services of legal betting shops on the internet must register so that it can be determined whether they are over 18, underage users can access the betting services more easily with the providers who have not aligned themselves with the local regulations.

More news on the online betting industry in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

Translated from Jutarnji List (reported by Vedran Marjanović).

A study conducted by the Arbone digital marketing agency about the profile of average users of Facebook and Instagram in Croatia in 2019 has confirmed that these social networks are the most popular ones among Croats. About 1.9 million Croats use Facebook, which has become one of the leading online advertising channels. Not far behind is Instagram, with 1.1 million users, reports Večernji List on January 17, 2019.

Before May 2017, Instagram was one of the social networks that did not get too much attention from the Croatian users. Data show that in January 2017 there were about 390,000 Instagram users in Croatia, while four months later, in May 2017, the number of users of the network grew rapidly to 730,000, according to Arbone's report published on Thursday.

Facebook's targeting options have shown that the total number of active Facebook users in Croatia is approximately 1.9 million and that the share between women and men is about 50:50, with 940,000 female users (49 per cent) and 960,000 male users (51 per cent).

The total number of active Instagram users in Croatia is approximately 1.1 million, with 590,000 female users (54 per cent) who are active on this social network and with 510,000 (46 per cent) male users.

The largest group of active Facebook belongs to the ages between 25 and 34, while the most active users on Instagram are those belonging to the 18-24 age group.

Arbon says that, in 2016, the most active groups of Facebook users were those between the ages of 13 and 24 years, which means that the younger generation has moved to Instagram in the meantime.

The largest number of active Facebook and Instagram users live in Zagreb (680,000 / 410,000), followed by Split-Dalmatia County (180,000 / 120,000), Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (130,000 / 68,000) and Osijek-Baranja County (130,000 / 67,000 users).

As far as individual towns are concerned, with the exception of Zagreb, the most significant number of Facebook and Instagram users come from Split (99,000 / 66,000), Rijeka (82,000 / 44,000) and Osijek (61,000 / 33,000). These results are expected, given that these are the four largest towns in the country.

More news on the social media in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

Translated from Večernji List.

It is free, accurate like a Swiss clock, and saves time to people who usually spend half an hour or more a day waiting for their trains. The mobile app in question is HŽPP Planer, thanks to which with just a few clicks on a mobile phone passengers can see the GPS position of the train they are waiting for, when the train will arrive and how much will the trip cost them. The app has more than 42,000 downloads on Google Play and was designed by a third-year student of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing Josip Šalković. Thanks to the success of his software, he has recently established cooperation with the Croatian Railways company, which promotes his app on its website, reports Večernji List on January 12, 2019.

“The main goal of the app is for no one to have to wait for the train for more than a few minutes because now they know where the train is at any moment. And we all know how much our trains like to abide by the timetables,” said Šalković laughingly. His GPS tracking system for trains is the first such system in Croatia.

How does it work? The HŽPP Planer app downloads the GPS data in real-time from the central data network of the Croatian Railways. Instead of showing a map with the exact position of the train, the app tells the passenger near what station the train is currently located and at what speed it is moving, calculating how much time the train will need to reach the passenger’s station.

“The HŽPP Planer app covers the whole national rail traffic. It does not matter whether a person is travelling from Zagreb to Dugo Selo or from Osijek to Rijeka or Split. The app will ‘find’ the train and tell them everything they are interested in,” Šalković pointed out.

The GSP system and the timetable overview are just some of the information given to users, since the application also notifies the users about construction works, navigates them during the trip, and tells them at which station they should leave the train. It explains where and how to change trains if needed and informs them about any inevitable delays. People who are particularly curious can enter the code of the train to check whether it is an older or a newer model and see the photos of its interior. The app calculates the ticket price in both directions, including discounts if the traveller is a student or a pensioner. In addition to searching within the app, timetables can be downloaded to your phone and viewed even when you are not online.

“This is especially useful to people who travel by train every day to work or university because their life depends on the timetables,” said Josip, who often travels from Zagreb, where he lives, to Karlovac, where he comes from. That is why he came up with the idea to develop the HžZPP Planer app in the first place.

More news on the Croatian Railways can be found in our Travel section.

Translated from Večernji List (reported by Hana Ivković).

ZAGREB, December 27, 2018 - The Internet is the main source of information to Croatian children and is a crucial socialisation tool, with more than 90% of children using mobile phones on a daily basis, which is why the risk of becoming addicted to the virtual world is growing, it was concluded at a round table discussion held in Zagreb.

As many as 93% of children use mobile or smart phones, and they do it frequently without adult supervision.

Four in five children (83%) use personal computers and one in four (26%) play on a console every day, expert Danijel Labaš said at the event, citing the findings of the 2017 survey "EU Kids" which covered also 1,097 children from Croatia aged 9-17.

The round table discussion was organised at the end of a six-month campaign aimed at raising awareness of the risk of Croatian children becoming addicted to the virtual world. The campaign covered nine primary schools in Zagreb.

"Media literacy is the literacy of the 21st century, and children should be taught how to live with media but also how to use them properly to avoid addiction," Labaš said.

He also spoke about the lack of awareness among young people of the risks arising from making friendships online with strangers.

A third of the young people surveyed communicate with strangers online. Furthermore, one in four teenagers aged 15-17 have met in person with strangers after online contact.

Experts see poor communication between parents and children as the reason why children seek solace in the virtual world.

More news on the use of IT technologies in Croatia can be found in our Lifestyle section.

Five years after entering the Croatian market, Google in Croatia is preparing for a big turnaround. So far, the American company has only imported into Croatia. It started by selling its advertising services to the Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ) and marketing agencies, continued by selling its office services in the cloud, and selling content from the Google Play store, enabling us to buy Android apps, games, movies and music. This year, Google established co-operation with PBZ and thus entered the Croatian payment market. In the meantime, Google has also collected a lot of information about Croatia, from creating digital maps to offering bus and trams schedules in Zagreb in real time via Google Maps, reports Poslovni.hr on December 19, 2018.

In these cases, Google in Croatia has only sold services and products that were developed outside. However, no later than the end of next year, the IT giant will support Croatian exports for the first time. Joško Mrndže, the director of Google for the Adriatic region, who was also the first director of Google's office in Croatia, said the next service they would launch in the Croatian market would be Merchant account.

He did not specify when exactly the service would be presented in Croatia. However, given the pace at which Google is expanding in the Croatian market, it is expected that this will happen no later than the end of next year. Having a Merchant account is a prerequisite for Croatian software producers to make money on Android apps, and to be able to sell their apps in the Google Play store directly from Croatia. For now, businesses and companies from Croatia can only give their apps for free; they cannot charge for them directly from Croatia.

Google Play is the largest software store in the world. Apps are being purchased there for Android mobile phones which, according to the Global Report Mobile Market for 2017, are used by more than 2.3 billion users. This year, it is expected that Android will get 300 million new users. This is one of the main reasons why high-tech players from Croatia are currently opening companies abroad.

The fact that they cannot use the Google Merchant account from Croatia is one of the reasons why the company behind the most popular Croatian mobile app with 100 million users, Photomath, has its HQ abroad. That is why the largest Croatian developer of mobile games, Nanobit, was forced to open a company in Budapest three years ago.

Damir Sabol, the founder of Photomath, points out that this used to be a significant problem. "It does not mean so much to us now because we are selling it through our US company, but it was a major obstacle because we could not sell it from Croatia," he says. He adds that others from the IT industry were also forced to set up companies outside of Croatia and says he does not know what prevented Google from enabling Merchant Accounts for companies from Croatia previously.

Luka Abrus, CEO of Five, one of the largest Croatian mobile app producers, says that they mostly work for international clients, so the issue is not a problem for them. “When we do projects for ourselves, we do it through an American company," says Abrus. Tomislav Car, director of Infinum, the largest mobile app company in Croatia, says that the Google service will help a lot when it becomes available. "Until now, people mostly opened companies in Hungary and the United States. I do not know why Google did not make Merchant accounts available to companies in Croatia. I guess we are not large enough market, so it took time for them to come here," says Car.

Tomislav Gojević, the head of development at Nanobit, says that the growth of companies such as Nanobit and Photomath shows that this is no longer the case. "It would make it easier for Nanobit to do business because it would cost us less if we did not have to open a business abroad to work with Google. We will have to consider another factor – avoiding double taxation with the US. If that were to happen, we would probably bring the Google Play business back to the parent company," Gojević concludes.

More news on the IT industry in Croatia can be found in our Business section.

Translated from Poslovni List (reported by Bernard Ivezić).