It seems that Croatia’s most famous national park does not want free promotion.
Can 13 beautiful, smiling women visiting Croatia be a bad promotion? Can there be too much promotion? For Zagreb, Rastoke, Zadar, Lošinj, Cres, Rijeka, the answer is no. But for Plitvice Lakes, it seems that the answer is yes. A team of the Munich-based Abendzeitung newspaper, which included 13 finalists for the Miss Munich competition, six photographers, four editors, two stylists and accompanying staff, were denied permit for a photo shoot at the national park, reports Večernji List on April 27, 2017.
Plitvice refused the free promotion because the photo shoot had no educational purpose. Fortunately, the opportunity was recognized by Rastoke which allowed the photo shoot to take place there. After the shoot on Tuesday, the German team continued with their tour of Croatia and the country will still get free promotion.
The five-day visit of the beautiful Bavarians has been organized by the Croatian National Tourist Board’s Main Office and the German tour operator ID Riva Tours, which share the travel costs in the amount of 26,000 euros, while the promotional value of the project is estimated at about 100,000 euros. The efforts of Croatian tourist professionals, who persuaded the editorial board of the Munich daily newspaper to selected Croatia for the shoot will not be in vain.
It is not clear why the administration of the Plitvice Lakes National Park refused the shoot. It is understandable that there are special rules applying to national parks. It is also clear that the number of visitors is growing year after year. But, there can never be too much demand. Natural heaven such as Plitvice Lakes should not be protected by removing it from the tourist map. The solution is better organization and more effective nature protection. For example, several daily tickets are enough to pay for a guard’s salary, so why not hire dozens or hundreds of new guards? Or, for example, perhaps ticket reservations should be introduced so that the pressure in the summer months would be better managed?
Likewise, it is possible for those who want to visit the park without notice and only at a certain time to have to pay double for the ticket. There are many ways to manage such a site while taking into account the fact that it is a treasure of invaluable natural value.
This is not the first such example. Plitvice Lakes has rejected several similar opportunities in the last year. In many cases, not even a recommendation from tourist institutions that it was a valuable promotion for Croatia had not helped.
The fact is that UNESCO has warned the national park due to too many visitors coming to Plitvice, which endangers its unique natural value. The park is sometimes visited by 15,000 people a day, and certainly there are days when it seems that everything is getting out of control.
“No matter how popular or famous it is, there is no destination in the world, including national parks, which would miss an opportunity to attract international attention and gain additional promotion. Plitvice should definitely think about how to solve organizational issues, but they should not avoid additional promotion,” said public relations expert Božo Skoko.
