January 7, 2019 – As part of the third edition of the project “Get to Know Your Country”, the Croatian Tourist Guides Association will organize free guided tours on Sunday, January 12, 2020, starting at noon.
HRTurizam reports that these guided tours will be held in all cities where this tourist guide association operates, which you can follow on Facebook.
Namely, this event is about organizing free tours by local guides in each city, all beginning at the same time across Croatia. The guided tours are intended for the locals to get to know their city or town better and thus become ambassadors of Croatian tourism. However, the tours are also open to all visitors and tourists.
“Every citizen of our country can be a promoter and ambassador of their homeland, and in the same way we wanted to point out the importance of national identity and cultural heritage as well as the importance of all tourist workers for the international reputation of the country,” points out Kristina Nuić Prka, President of the Croatian Tourist Guides Association. Prka adds that they also wanted to emphasize the importance of protected sites in representing the country and the Rulebook on the list of protected sites (still under construction), as well as the Rulebook on the professional exam for tourist guides, which means that only those guides who were educated in the Republic of Croatia are qualified as tour guides.
Although it has long been necessary to pass this Professional Examination, as well as the regulations on Protected Sites, many institutions sweep this under therug, forgoing market development, or the importance of interpretation.
On the contrary, another major problem plagues tourist guides. Namely, tourist guides are considered to be free-lance and self-employed persons (from the moment they pass the professional exam). Thus, they have no rights as unemployed persons from the Croatian Employment Service (CES). Essentially, if they lose their job or are unemployed – they are out of luck.
Since it is the citizens that give soul to a city, locals are the best ambassadors of tourism. Locals provide the rhythm and pulse to the destination and are the key to the culture of life, customs, and stories – the very essence of tourism.
So far, only 24 cities have been involved in the ‘Get to Know Your Country’ project. We can only hope that over the next few days, more destinations will join this vital piece to Croatia’s mosaic of tourism.
You can follow the project on Facebook.
To read more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page.
