August 11, 2019 – A major step forward in tourist information on Hvar, as Plan Hvar is launched with the aid of EU funding.
Tourist information has come a long way since I started Total Hvar way back in 2011.
Back then, it was almost unheard of to see events promoted in anything but Croatian. Quite how tourists were supposed to know what was going on did not seem to be important.
And then there was the timing of the announcements – usually some posters put on various notice boards only locals would know about, followed by a Facebook announcement half an hour before the event began. My all-time favourite was a post from the Jelsa Tourist Board several years ago, which stated that that evening’s concert had been cancelled due to bad weather. The fact that it had never been announced left many locals wondering what the tourist board was talking about.
But progress has been made. Bilingual event calendars are now the norm, not the exception. And a major step forward in event information management has just been announced on Hvar with the launch of Plan Hvar, a new platform in English and Croatia which aggregates all the events happening on the island. Great news!
It is something that I tried to do on Total Hvar, and perhaps I might have succeeded if I chosen the intelligent route taken by PlatFORma and their partners – seeking EU funding.
According to the Plan Hvar website, the project has taken 18 months and was subfinanced by the EU European Social Fund to the tune of 769,766.14 kuna. Partners in the project are PlatFORma Hvar, Grad Hvar, Dramski studio mladih Hvar, Festival mediteranskog filma Split, Gradska knjižnica i čitaonica Hvar, Lag Škoji, Udruga Pjover.
The calendar can be searched by village and by category, and each event has its own page with contact details and information about the event. There is also an option to add your own event.
It all sounds promising and will certainly improve the event information flow for tourists and locals alike.
Check out the Plan Hvar website here.
