May 24, 2020 – The world has changed, and so has destination promotion. Meet One Minute Ludbreg, a low-budget video project to make a destination’s attractions virtually available in one place.
It would be wrong to assume that all local tourist boards are the same in Croatia, and some are working very hard to promote their destinations. You can get an idea of who in the coming weeks from our new Virtual Croatia page, which is the result of an offer of a free promotional article putting all the destination’s virtual tools in one place for the first time. So far we have done Zagreb, Hvar, Sinj, Klis, Trogir, Stari Grad, Opatija, Omis, Brela and Rogoznica. You can see these articles here. Time is my enemy at the moment, but I now have about another 25 from the submissions I have received. Next on the list are Lumbarda, Vukovar, Inland Dalmatia and the island of Brac, which will be one article, with all 8 Brac tourist boards contributing.
And there is another project from a local tourist board which predates corona that I want to tell you about. It is called One Minute Ludbreg.
Late last year, the town of Ludbreg invited me for a meeting to see how I could help the town with its promotion and tourism strategy. I had a productive meeting with the Mayor of Ludbreg Dubravko Bilic and Ludbreg Tourist Board director Andrea Horvat and agreed to work with on a number of strategies to try and boost tourism, as well as raise the profile of the town’s successful economic story.
I have always liked Ludbreg, since my first visit with Elizabeta Dolenec, the then Varazdin County Tourist Board director back in 2016. You can read those initial impressions in Ludbreg, the Most Fascinating, Unusual Little Town in Croatia?
Andrea and I had a good chat about the destination and the possibilities, and we have been quietly working on a number of initiatives, some of which were interrupted by corona, of course. These include a project with Polish tour agencies to bring pilgrims en route to Medjugorje to Ludbreg. Unlike Medjugorje, Ludbreg has a Vatican-certified miracle which you can actually visit. In fact, it is the only certified miracle in Croatia that you can visit, which makes Ludbreg officially Croatia’s miracle capital. I was shocked how few locals in Zagreb even knew this.
Another concept we decided to work on was One Minute Ludbreg. Ludbreg actually has lots to see, but many of these attractions take 5-10 minutes each. It is actually a very fun family destination just an hour out of Zagreb, with several good restaurants and three hotels. And if you are religious, why not come for Sunday Mass in a church with a certified miracle on view?
How to capture all the different attractions to present them to future guests? We came up with the concept of One Minute Ludbreg. A video introduction to each attraction, which would be available on the Ludbreg YouTube channel.
I have very little experience with presenting on video, and I have a lot to learn. We made a start, to see how it would go, more for Instagram than YouTube (hence the portrait v landscape) with our first One Minute Ludbreg video about the Sara Kolak javelin monument on the main square next to the Centre of the World. The video was shot and edited by Gustavo Vilera.
Corona came, and lockdown on Hvar meant that this aspect of One Minute Ludbreg would have to be put on hold.
But Hvar did give us the chance to get more experience, and I have been having lots of fun putting various parts of this gorgeous island online, with my local knowledge and anecdotes to give extra value.
We now have a concept finally, and I was delighted to be back in Ludbreg this week to resume filming.
I will be back again on Thursday with TCN intern Janja to spend the day filming with the mayor, the winemakers and other attractions, with the first video in the series due in a couple of weeks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2jKK6bYVCI
One Minute Ludbreg is a simple, low-cost concept that can be done by anyone. It gives potential tourists just a little bit more to help them get to know the destination and decide if they want to visit.
If you are interested in working with us on the One Minute Ludbreg concept in your destination (as a tourist board, hotel group or private individual), please contact us on [email protected] subject 1 Min Ludbreg.
You can follow the One Minute Ludbreg series when it goes live on our Virtual Croatia section.
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