December 20, 2019 – It has been a tremendous year for Hvar Town, from the reopening of Europe’s oldest public theatre to being voted the best island in Europe. An overview of some of the highlights.
In 2018, Hvar celebrated 150 years of organised tourism in Europe, the first place to offer such tourism with the founding of the Hvar Health Society on May 15, 1868. It was the latest milestone in Hvar’s illustrious tourism journey over the last one and a half centuries. Could year 151 being anything special too?
Oh yes!
After years of flirting with party tourism, 2019 was the year when the direction of Croatia’s premier island was reset. A number of important heritage openings and awards set the tone for what has once again been an exceptional year for the island which boasts the most UNESCO heritage of any island in the world.
Reopening of Hvar Public Theatre.
May 1 was an historic day for Hvar culture. For finally, after a renovation process of some 20 years, the oldest public theatre in Europe was once again opened. Built in 1612, the theatre celebrated its 400th year in 2012, and it is a symbol of the high level of culture that existed on Hvar in years gone by.
Take a tour of the theatre in this excellent drone footage released at the time of the opening, and learn more about the theatre in an interview with the author of its history, Mirjana Kolumbic.
Reopening of Arsenal.
The theatre is located on the first floor of the imposing Arsenal building, which guards the entrance to the main square in Hvar Town. The Arsenal has undergone plenty of renovation of its own in recent years, a journey which included the discovery of Roman ruins underneath its structure. Renovations were finally completed, and it reopened as a premium event and exhibition centre for the town.
Opening of Palace Elisabeth, hvar heritage hotel, the first 5-star hotel on the island.
Renovation was also taking place across Dalmatia’s largest square (some 4,500), as the location of the origins of the oldest organised tourism in Europe was enjoying a 100-million-kuna facelift of its own. Palace Elisabeth, hvar heritage hotel, opened its doors on September 1, the first-ever 5-star hotel on the island. It was a gorgeous fusion of modern luxury and exquisite heritage details. The opening party in October was quite a night, and now Hvar Town finally has a world-class hotel to complement the destination.
IQM – measuring the improvement in quality.
Measuring quality and improvement in tourist destination in Croatia has always been problematic and anecdotal, simply because there has been no mechanism of quality control. That changed recently with the introduction of the IQM (Integrated Quality Management) destination standard, and Hvar Town was one of the first in the country to adopt it. And the first concrete results were impressive:
The project was implemented on a total of 122 tourism facilities in Hvar, 94 were accommodation facilities (hotels, hostels, private accommodation, camps…) and 28 hospitality facilities (restaurants and cafes) and the results for the first eight months of the year indicate that Hvar achieved a higher and better score than for the same period last year.
In the Guest Rating Score (GRS), Hvar achieved a score of 89.5 of the possible 100 points which is 1.7% better year-on-year. The city aims to achieve a score of 90. Of a total of 10,655 evaluations of services (560 more than last year), the quality of hospitality services were assessed with a score of 96. The score for price compared to quality was 94, location scored 92 and cleanliness 93 points. Hospitality facilities were given a score of 89.4 or 1.6% higher than last year while the quality of food scored 88.7. The food quality received 88.7 points and services 91, while the ratio of price and quality in the reviews restaurants and cafes was 85.
Conde Nast votes Hvar the number one island in Europe, maybe Travel + Leisure too.
Back in 1997, readers of influential travel publication Conde Nast Traveler voted as one of the ten most beautiful islands in the world, a tag which has stuck with the sunshine island ever since.
This year, a record 600,000 readers cast their votes once more for Hvar, and Hvar was voted the number one island in all Europe. And who are we to disagree?
And it is not just Conde Nast. Hvar has also been nominated for the best island in Europe in the 2020 Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards. Voting will take place until March, 2020.
Five island tourist boards join into one Destination Management Organisation.
After years of promoting the island’s towns separately, the five tourist boards of Hvar officially signed a contract of cooperation which will see them transformed into a destination management company, working together to promote the island as one. With more money allocated to joint advertising, the benefits for the islands’ tourism promotion should be significant.
The return of Bahrain McLaren, a global brand launch on Croatia’s premier island.
There were many visitors to Hvar this year, tourists and otherwise, but one world-class fixture each December in recent years has been the cycling team of Bahrain Merida, one of the very top teams in the sport, who have discovered that Hvar is an ideal place for winter training. The whole Bahrain Merida team of 80 descended on Hvar for the third winter this month, immediately after the exciting announcement of their new partner, McLaren. Bahrain McLaren will become the official name on January 1, but it was on Hvar that this new partnership first took to the roads.
Suncani Hvar Hotels among the awards and nominations.
The hotel story of the year on Hvar was, of course, Palace Elisabeth, which has already aroused plenty of media and industry attention. Already one of the Leading Hotels of the World (one of only 6 in Croatia), Palace Elisabeth featured heavily in international media, including USA Today, The Daily Telegraph, Elite Traveler, and Robb Report, as well as being named by Architectural Digest as one of the world’s best-designed new hotels for 2020.
But the media love and recognition was not confined to Palace Elisabeth, and Hotel Amfora was included in TripAdvisor’s top 30 family resorts in Europe, while Hotel Adriana has been nominated by Travel + Leisure in the Best Croatian Hotels category.
And, in more good news for the luxury traveller, the second 5-star hotel on the island is due to open in April in Maslinica, close to the ferry in Stari Grad.
The season in numbers, a platform to build on.
By November 15, the 2019 season had already become the busiest in the town’s post-independence history, with 210,942 arrivals and 763,629 overnights. Key target markets, the UK and USA, were among the top five growth markets:
UK 31,139 arrivals + 4.64% 115,782 nights + 5.13%
US 30,907 arrivals + 7.51% 75,323 nights + 5.73%
France 10,096 arrivals + 8.80% 30,237 nights + 4.99%
Brazil 8,059 arrivals + 14.3% 22,110 nights + 13.41%
Ireland 6,408 arrivals + 43.26% 21,925 nights + 39.46%
A great year, and all bodes well for a successful 2020. More reflections on 2019 and what to look out for in 2020 from Hvar Tourist Board director Petar Razovic in a recent TCN interview.
