Dubrovnik, an Incredible Destination with Incredibly Bad Tourism: Time to Refocus?

July 5, 2020 – TCN interview with Dubrovacki Vjesnik about tourism in Dubrovnik, an incredible destination with incredibly bad tourism. Time to refocus?

I had an email from Lorita Vierda recently, a journalist from Dubrovacki Vjesnik, which resulted in an interview which was published yesterday – you can see the Croatian version here. Below, the English version.

First of all, your name has been popping up almost every day, especially when it comes to the crisis, tourism and possible solutions for survival. Why is that? Doesn’t Croatia have like a million experts in those matters, that we citizens pay to give us direction, to solve the problems, to offer some kind of path to recovery?

Haha, sorry if I am in your inbox too much. I run Total Croatia News, the English-language news portal for Croatia. We have two mottos – Give People What They Want, and Celebrate the Little Guy.

We saw people desperately search for information about coronavirus, so we started a daily live update, then the same with the Zagreb earthquake, and now finally with travel information in these uncertain times. We have a very popular daily travel update which is now available in 24 languages to help tourists who do not speak English, as well as a Viber community which is answering questions in real time, as well as giving us excellent feedback from our community on real experiences as they try and cross borders, for example.

Yes, we pay for what seems like a million people but I would not necessarily classify them as experts…

You live in Croatia long enough to know how things work (or don’t work). Can you specify current problems when it comes to saving small businesses connected to tourism? You must have some general idea about it, along with ideas about coming out of a crisis. What must the government and institutions do to help? We are also wondering what are they doing right now…

The biggest problem is that we don’t have the right people in positions of power to make the right decisions. And – with elections coming – that is before you start you bring in the politics, which dictates everything here.

If we had the Glas Poduzetnika team making the decisions, I think we would have a very different situation.

Dubrovnik is isolated, surrounded by borders, it’s always been kind of a good thing for us in the past. We are almost exclusively an airline destination, without it we can only dream about serious tourism. Negotiations with airline companies are very slow as a result of the covid crisis. Is turning to Croatians and inviting them to travel within their country the right way to go, and if so (and I believe it is), why do most people insist on the same, high prices of everything?

I think Dubrovnik should be enjoyed by Croatians – it is part of their country after all. I think that Dubrovnik tourism, and Croatian tourism needs a complete reset, of which more below.

Some of Dubrovnik’s restaurateurs, hotel managers, owners of the villas and apartments, also insist on keeping up last year’s prices, just adding up a little bit of services to it, saying that it’s best to keep up the image of the City, and still don’t want to start working yet. Are they wrong, and if you think so, why?

The market will tell them the answer. Am not sure what image of the city you are referring to, but the image I see from distance of Dubrovnik is a destination of high prices, numbers, numbers, numbers, and average quality. Expensive yes, a quality tourism experience? No. But it easily could – and should – be.

In your opinion, how should Dubrovnik, because of it’s geographical position and isolation from the rest of the country and the world, change it’s status, in what way?

Dubrovnik is one of the great destinations of global tourism, which has lost its way, in my opinion. Go back 40 years to the Dubrovnik Summer Festival and the type of tourism you had then. You have a unique – truly unique – destination, and yet you make it available anyone and everyone for the sake of numbers, numbers, numbers. I had friends with a niche souvenir shop who closed the shop as they did far less business in July and August, as the day-trippers who didn’t spend kept the higher-spending tourists away.

Is the Pelješac bridge really going to help, except to avoid the border with BiH for those who travel to Korčula or Pelješac?

I think it will help to break the siege mentality in the minds of some people in Dubrovnik, and yes I do think it will help. We get SO many enquiries about the Neum Corridor. Take away that uncertainty and the potential border wait, and things will improve. And if they ever finish the highway…

Croatian administration- crucial problems and possible changes – how do you see it?

It needs a complete reset, as the current setup is totally dysfunctional. A nuclear solution is the only sensible option – Act of Parliament to abolish the Ministry of Tourism, Croatian National Tourist Board and tourism sector of the Chamber of Economy, then rebuild something coherent with 21st-century tools and skillsets.

What’s your personal opinion about Dubrovnik, its tourism, people, food, locations, way of life….?

I went to the Festival of St Blaise a few years ago. It remains one of my top 10 experiences of my 18 years in Croatia. Local traditions, local people, the old town stripped back to its original stone. Dubrovnik is an outstanding destination which is being destroyed by greed and the obsession with numbers. Corona has taught us all to evaluate life. Go back to basics, to the bare stone of Dubrovnik. List the considerable and unique tourism products you have, and build a high-end tourism strategy based on that, with some affordable options for Croatians.

The future of Croatian tourism should be based around safety and lifestyle in my opinion, and Dubrovnik has a big role to play in that. More and more people these days work in the same office. It is called the Internet. There are only two variables – connectivity (3G, 4G,5G) and time zones. When people leave the office, they go home. Some want to go home to their village, their family and friends. Others want to go home to Lifestyle.

Croatia. Your Safe Lifestyle Destination.

Croatia is the Lifestyle Capital of Europe – there is nowhere close if we can rid of the Mighty State of Uhljebistan. Imagine Dubrovnik, the luxury Lifestyle Captial of Europe, attracting people 12 months a year with their inspiring mindsets to change the mindset of the younger generation.

It is totally achievable. It just required a mindset reset, which is what I am attempting to achieve with my CROMADS project, which will go live in a few weeks – Facebook page here.