I am a simple guy.
When it comes to tourism events, here is what I think.
If there is an event, and I know about it, I might come.
Simple, right?
Promote an event in the hope that people might respond to your promotion. Makes sense. Except…
I live on Hvar, where we do things differently.
A rather extraordinary approach to tourism takes place on Hvar, so extraordinary that perhaps it could achieve its own slice of UNESCO Intangible Heritage. It is known as the Let’s Tell the Tourists about the Event After It Starts.
Telepathy Tourism.
I would like to compliment the Stari Grad Tourist Board director on this excellent new initiative. The biggest date in the town’s recent tourism history, and certainly her lifetime, started today without so much as a single word of notice, but as soon as the party started in Brussels, the world will know (see pic above).
Except it is not quite new. The Kings of Tell-Them-It-Has-Started-And-We-Are-Having-So-Much-Fun (shame your telepathic powers are so weak or you could have joined us) were the previous regime in Jelsa, who managed to report events after they had started, and only those who had telepathic powers were present. It was a cult called #feeljelsa.
I had two personal favourites – a video of the first night of the first Jazzelsa festival, showing a handful of people having fun. The video was taken and shared by the previous director just after the first night. It would have been nice if he had actually announced the event.
This was surpassed only by my favourite announcement by a tourist board ever, also on Hvar (and sadly removed before I had time to capture its majesty).
“Tonight’s concert has been cancelled due to bad weather.”
A concert which had not been announced and nobody knew about, except the telepathy kings – does telepathy not work with cancellations.
Happy birthday Stari Grad. I wonder if your tourist board director will announce your festival in September, or if we will simply hear about it in October.
