February 4, 2020 - Croatian tourism chiefs keep talking about 12-month tourism, and the Dalmatian capital has enough content to support it, so why are there no budget winter flights to Split? Shall we try? 

When I first moved to Dalmatia back in 2003, I found Split in winter a little creepy. 

Walking through Diocletian's Palace after dark was a depressing experience, nothing was open, and I had the feeling that I might get mugged on some occasions. I remember the fabulous ladies from Zinfandel and B7 telling me that when they opened the first licenced hostel around the same time, things were so bad that they had to take their winter guests to a bar at the bus station to party. 

How times have changed! 

Tourism has really boomed in Split since I arrived, and it was known back then as the Gateway to the Dalmatian Islands, whereas now it is known as one of the hottest destinations in Europe. In the summer and shoulder months. But once those budget airlines wind up for the season, things change considerably from November to early April. And yet the content is there if people came. Events such as Advent in Split are great additions to the winter scene (as those who remember the pre-Advent days will confirm). But adventure tourism, gourmet tourism, cultural tourism - these have all progressed considerably in the last decade, and the tourism providers stand ready to greet their winter guests. 

And yet - despite the explosion of budget air travel in recent years - the airports on the Adriatic are mostly idle. Does it really have to be that way?

I recently received a message from a tourism business owner in Split:

So the reason for this message is to get businesses in Dalmatia thriving (specifically Split) from 1st of November to April 1st. We are dying!!! Literally!! 

I've just been away and coming back made me realise how dead this city ACTUALLY is!!! I was too busy being a boring mum, ? and I didn't realise what a ghost town it actually was. Sure there a few local places that do well and manage to survive, but the overall situation is horrific! And if foreigners, even just Europeans were to fly here for short city breaks then it will motivate the locals to come out of there houses. It will create a chain reaction!!

Dalmatia is the Florida of Europe and all we have is sunshine and a bunch of pensioners!!! I even invested in a marketing agency over winter to help with winter businesses. But we have achieved nothing!! 

It's great that we are getting more flights over summer, but we desperately NEEEEEEEED to be connected to Europe over winter. 

Dalmatia is no better off than Slavonia over winter, I'm telling you. We may have the finances left from summer to get us through, but the lack of people and moral3 is so demoralising.

The email got me thinking - surely it was worth testing the market to see if there was enough of a market? I have heard SO many people complain over the years that Split and Dalmatia is so inaccessible over the years. If we made it more accessible, would they actually come and support such an initiative. Perhaps, perhaps not, but the only way to find out would be to try. 

Should we try or just keep on talking about it and complaining? 

The Croatian National Tourist Board had some kind of programme for providing financial assistance to airlines. I had thought that this was in the form of a subsidy, but as I found out when I contacted them (see below), it isn't actually a subsidy: 

Inquiry:

1. I know that HTZ subsidises some flights. Is it possible to give me more information, please? A statement on the strategy, as well as details of which flights/airlines are subsidised. 

2. Has there ever been a plan to experiment with subsiding a year-round flight to Split to see if the interest was there?

Response:

The Croatian National Tourist Board offers the opportunity for interested partners from the tourism industry to propose activities related to programs for Croatia via public calls for proposals, with the aim of realizing common interests, actively promoting the domestic tourist offer and attracting more guests.

All interested travel industry partners (tour operators and carriers) with all forms of organized programs for Croatia (air, bus and nautical) that are introducing or looking to enhance their programs or extend the period of operations in the pre-season and post-season with a tendency to further grow in the 3 years following the introduction of the program are eligible to submit to the public call.

Interested partners submit their proposals for cooperation to the CNTB representative office in the relevant market (CNTB Head Office for other markets depending on the partner's programs and headquarters), and when selecting a partner, the compatibility of the partner's program with the main strategic goals of the CNTB is taken into account. The proposal submitted, as well as the submitting partner’s market position, openness to cooperation and the possibility of establishing a viable partnership are all taken into account. A final decision on the selection of partners for the implementation of the CNTBs strategic promotional campaigns (affiliate marketing campaigns) is made by the CNTB Tourism Council.

It is important to note that this is not a subsidy, but a marketing cooperation, because in consultation with the chosen partners, advertising is carried out in all types of media, depending on the final agreement. While a portion of the agreed activities certainly include some related to year-round flight routes of interest to individual Croatian regions.

I am not sure I am much wiser in terms of my questions answered, but perhaps there is something that we can take from this. Assuming that the Croatian National Tourist Board is interested strategically in 12-month tourism and would support marketing cooperation to make that happen, and with the excellent connections the tourism chiefs must have with the airlines that they deal with, can we not package a deal to make it sufficiently attractive to a low-cost airline to dip a toe in the water and see what the interest? Even if that deal means giving the airline better summer landing slots, for example? Surely Split Airport would be flexible on fees to allow this seed to grow.

A couple of flights a week from London, Oslo, Berlin and Rome, for example. 

Would local businesses like to be involved to see if it could work, either through financially supporting or offering special discounts? 

Isn't it worth a try?

To follow the latest from Split, check out Total Split. 

As Novac/Dora Koretic writes on the 4th of February, 2020, after an attractive piece of property on Zagreb's Victims of Fascism Square has sat empty almost a decade, the building that once housed students and boasted a student polyclinic could finally have a new, much more specific function.

This empty building on Victims of Fascism Square would likely take on a tourism-oriented function, given that the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, which also owns the property, recently launched a non-binding tender, with up to eleven bidders, with most of them interested in converting this attractive building into a hotel.

This was revealed by HAZU President Velimir Neidhardt in an interview with Nedjeljni Jutarnji, confirming that interest in turning the property into yet another new Zagreb hotel is extremely high, but investors who see a polyclinic or a private university being placed there also applied for the competition.

''It is true that a total of eleven bidders applied for the tender, but it was a non-binding tender, after which, a binding tender will be announced very soon. We can't find reveal any of the names of the bidders so far,'' a statement from HAZU said in response to an inqury on the matter.

A little more detail was revealed by Neidhardt in his interview for Jutarnji, and he confirmed that the facility is likely to become a hotel, although HAZU has been negotiating with the Department of Science for years, who have been wanting to find a more convenient location for its headquarters.

"For many years, we've been negotiating with the Ministry of Science who have a desire to move here... We expect the Ministry to make itself known. If it doesn't decide on that, then we'll have to go with other projects. We will definitely break into all that within a month or two. We're getting a new investment,'' Neidhardt announced. However, as the aforementioned publication reports from the Ministry, no agreement was reached between them and HAZU, and it is unlikely that this will happen any time soon.

The idea has faced a lot of criticism, however.

A non-binding tender for the lease of the building was launched back in November last year, and it was evident that HAZU was being offered the lease a building of four dilations in an attractive, protected urban area of the city, involving a protected monument of pre-war architectural heritage. In the general urban plan, it is located in zone D for public use and, most importantly of all, requires a thorough renovation before being put to use for any purpose.

Otherwise, it is a building for which HAZU has received quite a lot of criticism over the years, especially since the Academy got rid of the "Ivan Mestrovic" student home from the building back in 2011 after a lawsuit, and later the student polyclinic after the lease between HAZU and the Health Centre expired.

From then until today, that is to say, for nine years now, this attractive piece of real estate in the centre of the city, more precisely located on Victims of Fascism Square, has been lying totally vacant, and although journalists have occasionally questioned what academics will do with this valuable property over the last nine years, until just one month ago, it wasn't possible to get a concrete answer from HAZU at all.

The courtyard building covers a total of 8,500 gross square feet, and it also has a driveway and some ancillary buildings. The estimated lease value in the non-binding tender has not been defined, which means that the number of tenderers in the binding tender may be slightly different.

Make sure to follow our business page for more. If it's just Zagreb you're interested in, give Total Zagreb a follow or check out our dedicated Zagreb in a Page.

February 4, 2020 - The latest news from around Croatia’s airports for new flights to Croatia with updates from Zadar, Dubrovnik, and Split. 

Ex Yu Aviation and Avio Radar report that Ryanair has added its 12th new route and 34th total to Zadar for the summer season. Namely, Ryanair will connect Budapest with Zadar twice per week, on Thursdays and Sundays, from July 2 until September 27, 2020. The Boeing 737-800 aircraft will operate on this route. Avio Radar adds that this is only the second line from Hungary to Croatia. 

Recall, Lauda, which is Ryanair’s subsidiary, will base three aircraft at Zadar Airport in the summer. Around 672,000 passengers are expected to use Ryanair to fly to and from Zadar in 2020. 

Recall, Zadar Airport, also expects over one million in 2020. 

“Having welcomed 800,000 travelers in 2019 is a big achievement for us. It is a milestone. However, new records will be broken in 2020,” said Zadar Airport General Manager, Josip Klišmanić. “During our first fifty years of operations, we handled under a million passengers annually. This will no longer be the case in 2020,” he added. In 2019, Zadar Airport handled 801,347 passengers, which is an additional 197,308 compared to 2018. 

Zadar Airport will thus become the fourth airport in the country to welcome one million passengers in a single year, after Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik.

Furthermore, Avio Radar reports that SkyTeam member and French national carrier Air France has announced that it is boosting operations to Dubrovnik and Split. 

The Paris (Rossy-Charles de Gaulle Airport)-Dubrovnik route will operate daily in 2020. Namely, the line will begin operating on March 29, a week earlier than last year. At the same time, during the preseason, it will work twice a week, on Saturdays and Sundays, or one flight a week more than last year. 

During the heart of the season, Dubrovnik and Paris will be connected by seven flights per week instead of the five routes last year. The Airbus A318, A319, and A320 will run on this line.

The Paris (Rossy-Charles de Gaulle Airport)-Split line will run six flights per week, or every day but Saturday. This is twice as many flights as last year when the two cities were connected by Air France three times per week. The smaller Embraer ERJ-190 will fly on this line. Last year, the Airbus A319 aircraft flew on this route. 

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

ZAGREB, February 4, 2020 - The state-owned rail company HŽ Infrastruktura and the Austrian company Swietelsky signed an agreement in Virovitica (150 kilometres east of Zagreb) on Monday for the reconstruction of the 21-kilometre-long railway line between Virovitica and Pitomača, a project worth about HRK 170 million (€23 m).

The work is expected to be completed in 18 months. The project will be financed with a commercial loan backed by a state guarantee. The upgraded line will allow trains to run at a speed of 100 kilometres an hour, which, compared with the present 80 km/h, will cut travel time and make travel safer.

The Virovitica-Pitomača section is part of the railway line connecting Varaždin, Koprivnica, Virovitica, Osijek and Dalj and is the first of the total of three sections for which HŽ Infrastruktura has secured 449 million kuna (60 m euro) for the next five year period. The other two sections are Pitomača-Virje (22 km) and Virje-Koprivnica (20 km).

Transport and Infrastructure Minister Oleg Butković said that this project was part of a major railway investment cycle. "Currently we are building railway infrastructure worth a total of 1.5 billion euro. These are mainly the most important transport corridors in Croatia, but we are also taking care of regional lines to ensure that all counties are adequately connected," he said.

Zvonko Dundović of Swietelsky said that this company has been present in the Croatian construction market for more than 20 years and has reconstructed more than 500 kilometres of railway tracks to date.

More news about railways in Croatia can be found in the Travel section.

ZAGREB, February 4, 2020 - Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković has warned that EU member countries' leaders should reach a political agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the period 2021-2027 as soon as possible, so that the legislative part of the work could also be completed as soon as possible.

One should bear in mind that having a political agreement on the negotiating framework at the European Council is not enough, it is necessary to negotiate with the European Parliament the legislative part of the work as well, Plenković said in an interview with the politico.eu website during his visit to Portugal this past weekend, where he attended a meeting of the Friends of Cohesion informal group.

At the level of the European Council, the EU's highest political body made up of member-states' heads of state or government, a consensus needs to be reached regarding the amount of the budget for each year in the seven-year period as well as amounts for individual areas that are financed, such as cohesion, agriculture, research, etc.

After that, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament must agree on a set of legislative acts for the implementation of the MFF.

The meeting in Portugal was held three weeks ahead of an extraordinary meeting of the European Council, called by its president Charles Michel in an attempt to help reach a compromise on the EU's new seven-year budget.

The extraordinary summit, to be held on February 20, will give new political impetus to attempts to reach an agreement but it is too early to say if it will result in one, Plenković said.

Michel is in charge of preparing a draft agreement on the MFF, which Plenković says is good for Croatia as the country currently chairing the Council of the EU as it gives it more room to defend its own national interests.

Plenković repeated that for Croatia cohesion policy was extremely important, notably in light of the fact that Croatia was the youngest EU member and had so far used cohesion funds for a much shorter period of time than other members.

More news about Croatia and the EU can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, February 4, 2020 - Croatia is among six EU countries where workers' pay packets are lower on average than ten years ago, show data from the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI).

In the period from 2010 and 2019 average pay packets, adjusted for inflation (and including social security contributions and pay benefits), went down in Croatia by five percent.

The latest ETUI data show that pay packets also went down in Italy, by 2%, in Spain and Portugal, by 4% each, in Cyprus, by 7%, and in Greece, by 15%.

ETUI notes that average pay packets practically froze with barely above zero increases over the last decade in Finland (0.1%), Belgium (1.5%) and the Netherlands (1.5%).

"Working people in six EU countries are worse off than they were 10 years ago," said Esther Lynch, ETUC Deputy General Secretary.

"EU leaders like to talk up the so-called recovery but the crisis is not over for millions of working people in many EU countries."

"The EU must do much more to promote increases in wages and in minimum wages, and to support stronger collective bargaining in almost all EU member states," Lynch said.

More economy news can be found in the Business section.

February 4, 2020 - As part of the EU project "Palace of life - City of changes", the archaeological research at the Old Town Hall in Split will begin at the end of this week.

TCN has already announced that the neo-Gothic Old Town Hall building in the Split Pjaca will undergo a complete transformation. 

Namely, the building will retain its current size, layout, and height. Renovations will be carried out on the floors, all floor structures, and the roof.

Architect of the project, Josip Ružić, said that by removing the existing walls and modifying the inter-story structures, the intention is to achieve an open and flexible exhibition space on all three floors. This will allow the heritage facility to be used for new functions and to hold seminars, lectures, concerts, receptions, and the like.

The Old Town Hall could also serve as a place where the mayor would occasionally receive high-ranking guests, and suitable furniture for the first floor will be specially brought in for the occasion. The dropped ceiling will be removed and a wooden cassette ceiling installed, with thermal insulation required. The base of the pillars in the loggia that were cut off during the earlier interventions will be reconstructed and add the missing part of the stone base.

The existing wooden windows and doors will be replaced with new ones, but in the same style. Anti-theft foil is envisaged on the windows, with additional thermal insulation and sun protection.

On the ground floor, the reception area, souvenir shop, control room, and toilets will be located along the existing loggia and the exhibition area, and all the facilities mentioned above will occupy a quarter of the space, while the rest will be used for exhibiting. An 18th-century illustrated monograph of Diocletian's Palace, authored by Scottish architect Robert Adam, will be displayed on the touch screen.

The north side of Old Town Hall will provide access for people with disabilities, up to the ground floor level by a ramp, and access to the second floor by elevator. A stone staircase with a wrought iron fence will be retained. On the first and second floors, there will be showrooms, and the attic is intended for mechanical installations, storage, and office space.

Recall, at the end of last year, the City of Split Administration announced a competition for archaeological research and the renovation and interior decoration of the historic building located in the Split Pjaca, or People’s Square. 

These activities are an integral part of the EU project "Palace of life - City of changes", financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the ITU Mechanism of the Urban Agglomeration of Split, and the value of this part of the works is estimated at 7.2 million kuna.

Slobodna Dalmacija announced that the archaeological research at the Old Town Hall finally begins at the end of this week.

Renovation works precede these works, and their goal is to fully discover and protect the archaeological layers and structures of the building. They are expected to be completed in March 2020, when renovation and interior design work is scheduled to begin.

The interior design project is signed by Nikolina Jelavić Mitrović, who designed and executed 12 permanent exhibitions of museums in Croatia and more than 130 exhibitions in our leading museums and galleries. For the Vukovar City Museum housed in the Eltz Castle and the Museum Alka of Sinj, she received prestigious European awards.

The designer notes that, given the importance of the building, it was approached with the utmost care and that all possible installation equipment would be kept as hidden or as noticeable as possible.

“In addition to the installation of a modern ventilation system, a microclimate control system is envisaged, which will allow the exposure of the most sensitive and valuable exhibits. The first and second floors will have microclimate control when needed, so that the most sensitive exhibits can be exposed,” says Jelavić Mitrović, adding that there will be automatic glass doors on the floors that provide stable microclimate conditions.

Unlike the existing lighting, the new lighting will be flexible, able to move around, and allow for better adjustment of light intensity depending on the purpose. There will be built-in speakers on the ceilings.

The project envisages a system of dismantling panels that will allow the window openings to be covered, thus providing more exhibition space.

“No use of the walls is envisioned, but the exhibitions will be shown exclusively on the billboards. The space is a bit darker as the walls will not be white, and the use of disassembly panels will be used. The panels will be able to change color depending on the exhibition,” notes the designer, pointing out that the panels will be able to be placed freely in the space, but also against the wall using a special suspension system to create a continuous exhibition surface.

The coat of arms on a glass wall in the center window is planned on the first floor, which was created when the town hall was Neo-Gothic. The coats of arms will be made of colored glass, and not painted on glass as it is now.

Incredibly, this space has not been valorized so far as a building and a site of significant events in the history of the city. It is time it is presented adequately.

To read more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page. 

As Morski writes on the 3rd of February, 2020, Veruda island, otherwise known as a favourite island among Pula locals and better known as ''fratar (brother) island'', has received valuable recognition in the form of the EKO beach label as the only one of its kind in the whole of the Republic of Croatia.

Namely, at the initiative of the Ministry of Tourism, the administrative department for tourism of Istria County drew up a regional programme for the regulation and management of the beaches. In this way, the systematic, thoughtful and sustainable management of the beaches is ensured, above all by environmental standards. The beach on Veruda island has as such fulfilled the stringent Eco Beach requirements. There will be an information board placed on the beach itself which will descrie and detail the valuable flora and fauna that grows in the area, as well as the rules and expectations when it comes to behaviour on eco beaches.

Pula Mayor Boris Miletic said he was extremely pleased by the environmental recognition that confirms the green status Veruda island has among the citizens of Pula.

"Year after year, we work to preserve its authenticity, the natural environment and we continue developing and enriching the island as a place where citizens will continue to actively spend their free time,'' stated Mayor Miletic.

The eco beach is located on the north side of island Veruda near the main pier and the reception of the nearby campsite. The beach is mostly pebbled, with a length of 350 metres and an average width of 12 metres, while in the hinterland, there is a beautiful natural pine forest. There is a changing awning on the beach, and near the waste storage tanks, and at a distance of 100 metres, there is a toilet with drinking water and showers with hot water available from solar collectors.

Veruda island is already preparing for a busy and successful 2020 summer season, and owing to that, a summer programme has been planned this year, which will attract hundreds of visitors during the summer season to enjoy concerts, performances, the culinary competition "GRILLijada" and of course the "Fratarski - Bunarina" swimming marathon.

In addition to it, the children's summer camp will be traditionally organised, attracting children and young people from Pula and the surrounding villages as it does every summer, who will also gain new friendships.

Make sure to follow our dedicated lifestyle and Total Eco Croatia pages for much more.