A two million kuna project will see the popular Sovlje beach in Tribunj near the historic Dalmatian city of Šibenik get a variety of new facilities, including new steps, smart benches, new showers, and a very welcome cash injection from the ministry.

As SibenikIN writes on the 3rd of January, 2019, the new year has started off wonderfully for the Tribunj Municipality, where the Croatian Ministry of Tourism has approved 400,000 kuna for the ''doing up'' of the popular Sovlje beach, while the rest of the funds are set to be provided by the municipality itself.

''The public procurement process is currently in progress, and as soon as January the 8th, we should know who the contractor to carry out the works on Sovlje beach will be, as that will be when the public procurement process ends,'' said Tribunj Mayor Marko Grubelić.

With a massive total investment of around two million kuna, the entire coastline of Sovlje beach will be given a new lease of life. There will be stone steps going into the sea in more place,s and a ramp for wheelchair access for the disabled will be constructed. There will also be two brand new smart benches and two new showers on the beach.

''Considering the increase in the tourist accommodation capacities in the area of ​​Sovlje, increase the surface area of the beach should reduce the crowds during the summer months,'' stated Grubelić.

Grubelić was initially dissatisfied with the original conceptual solution for the fixing up and modernisation of Sovlje beach and, when he took over the function of Tribunj's mayor, he requested that the architectural office in charge of overseeing the procedure to change its plans.

As a result of the new conceptual solution and the collection of all the necessary certifications and green lights to get things going, the Sovlje beach project became a major one and a building permit was finally obtained. Works should begin in January this year following the announcement of the company which will be chosen and contracted to do the works on the 8th of this month, and the project's completion is expected as soon as May this year.

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Greek investor Petros Stathis has been visiting numerous institutions in order to complete the most luxurious tourist project in the Republic of Croatia, Amanresorts Cavtat, in Croatia's southernmost county of Konavle which borders Montenegro.

As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 13th of December, 2018, Greek investor Petros Stathis has re-activated matters over more recent days in regard to the eventual realisation of the Amanresorts project in Cavtat, otherwise being hailed as the most luxurious tourist project in the whole of Croatia, which could even end up making the list of strategic projects in the Republic of Croatia, which would be a useful move in terms of resolving the outstanding issues of spatial planning, among others, as soon as possible.

As a result of the large amount of paperwork involved in the process, the aforementioned investor has been heavily engaged in all of the required fields, from the state administration to the local administration, as Poslovni Dnevnik has unofficially published. The reactivation of the Amanresorts Cavtat project comes after more than three years after Amanresorts Cavtat was supposed to open its doors, but unfortunately encountered several stumbling blocks, mainly typically administrative ones, although Stathis never once gave up on it.

"I'm convinced that the Amanresorts Cavtat project will be successfully completed, and together with other Aman projects in the vicinity, Amanresorts Venice and Sveti Stefan (Montenegro), will become the star of the tourist sector of South East Europe," said Petros Stathis in the spring of 2015, when he explained why he was suddenly closing the Cavtat construction site.

He then stated that there were problems with the Bonvena Hotels company which was due to take care of the Cavtat project, which Stathis took over in the meantime, and that the entire chain of Amanresorts luxury resorts had gone through the process of ownership change.

For the realisation of the project, the investor is supposed to adapt the spatial planning documentation, and it's necessary to reach an agreement on various other factors, considering that the investor is seeking the closure of the beach below the area with his 30 million euro project.

The Municipality of Konavle didn't respond to Poslovni Dnevnik's question of what exactly they are willing, or unwilling, to offer to the investor in order to realise the Amanresorts Cavtat project. In addition, not even the investor himself, who has been investing in Montenegro in the meantime, has spoken publicly on the subject.

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Click here for the original article by Marija Crnjak for Poslovni Dnevnik

Investment in tourism is a machine boasting many wheels which must keep turning and following world tourism trends on a constant basis.

Stagnation in the tourism sector has been threatening Croatia following a few record tourism years, and while many expected such a drop as more of the country's older tourism rivals recover respectively, just how can Croatian hotels keep their rooms full and their offer hot in the face of strong competition from long-time tourism kings like Spain and nearby Greece?

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 6th of November, 2018, over the now rapidly approaching winter period, the well-respected Adriatic Luxury Hotels hotel group will continue its massive investment cycle and focus on properly restoring and redoing some of their highest category hotels located in one of the country's most popular tourist destinations, southern Dalmatia's Dubrovnik area.

After the luxurious ''doing up'' of two top Dubrovnik hotels, Hotel Kompas (Lapad) and Hotel Excelsior (Sveti Jakov area), Adriatic Luxury Hotels have announced that the same will be done to another of their high-end hotels, Hotel Bellevue, which closed its doors to guests on October the 31st this year, in order to prepare for the huge renovation works of the hotel's accommodation facilities and part of the hotel's interior which are due to begin during the winter.

Adriatic Luxury Hotels will invest more than 400,000 kuna per room in the upcoming complete re-doing of the top hotel's rooms and apartments, representing the first significant investment in Hotel Bellevue since its inauguration over a decade ago, back in 2006.

The Portuguese design studio Tereza Prego is heavily engaged in the project, specialising in the interior design of exclusive hotels and other high-end residences.

As things currently stand, it seems that the redesigned Hotel Bellevue will be ready by the spring of 2019.

Click here to see just how the hotel will look upon opening its doors early next year.

Want to keep up to date with Croatia's investment in tourism and see if any hotels in an area you're planning to stay in are about to undergo makeovers? Make sure to follow our business page.

Doing business in Croatia is always a hot topic, especially when it comes to listing the long list of negative experiences people have endured and hoops they have had to jump through in order to get a basic task done. While this isn't always the case, it's certainly the rule more than it is the exception, but just when will Croatia learn that the ease of doing business is far more likely to attract potential investors than natural beauty is?

As Ana Blaskovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of November, 2018, not much has come from the grandiose announcements made by Andrej Plenković earlier this year that 2018 will be the year of reforms for Croatia. 

Many people will simply make such a statement for the sake of making it, to keep up the tradition of disliking politicians and the political system, or simply as a protest against the current prime minister, but despite all of the above, this isn't a malignant interpretation, but a concerning one stated on the Doing Business World Bank scale. Croatia held 51st place last year when it came to the ease of doing business, but in 2018, Croatia returned to 58th place among 190 countries across the world.

The year of reforms indeed.

Discussions about methodology and criteria when it comes to doing business in Croatia can of course be debated and argued over, but they are the same for everyone and whatever conclusion one may arrive to, ultimately, nothing can change the fact that the number on the aforementioned scale is an unfavouravle one, and such scales are a very important tool when it comes to investors deciding whether or not to bring their capital, their skills and know-how, and open jobs here in Croatia, or simply to go somewhere else. The average start-up time for doing business in Croatia is a rather uninspiring 22.5 days, in neighbouring Serbia it is typically 5.5 days, and in Slovenia, it usually takes 8 days.

These figures perfectly illustrate the two areas that remain ''cancerous'' to the system and hinder any progress - the judiciary and of course, the public administration. Although a company's name can be electronically registered at a commercial court, that same court needs an average of two entire weeks just to issue a piece of paper confirming it, and without them and their pieces of paper, it's impossible to open a company bank account or design and make a company stamp.

The worst of the worst in this situation appears to relate to construction licenses (159th place in the world) where instead of simplification, four new procedures have conveniently been added, so that the process lasts for an utterly ridiculpus 146 days. In a rather embarrassing comparison, Serbia is at 11th place with a 40-day shorter process.

There is a proverbial sea, no, ocean, of such examples and the naked truth is simple yet brutal: Croatia is definitely going in the right direction and is making a lot of progress, but other countries are simply doing much more.

It's now high time that the Croatian Government realised that Croatia is not above any other country, and that investments don't come knocking at the door because of natural beauty, warm weather and a nice beach or two, but owing to the ease of doing business, which should be any normal country's top priority.

With investors frequently having nothing but complaints, red tape taking an insane amount of time to get through and money simply being lost in the ''Bermuda Triangle'' that is Croatia, all while trying to make a stamp as if we've taken a trip back to the 20th century, the question is - when will the penny finally drop?

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Click here for the original article by Ana Blaskovic for Poslovni Dnevnik

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