From ‘The Mediterranean as it Was ‘ to ‘The New Tourism Star of the Western european Union ‘, the Croatian Visitor Board’s new promotional video shows a marked change in approach and focus for 2012.
After another successful tourism season in Croatia, the nation’s traveller board has sprung a surprise with the release of its 2012 promotional video, moving next year’s focus markedly away from its biggest attraction – the surprising Adriatic coast – in favor of promoting more inland tourism.
The four-and-a-half minute video, a brilliantly produced piece featuring star Croatian cellist Ana Rucner playing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, definitely grabs the attention, as she moves from the fields of agricultural Croatia to the trams of Zagreb and eventually to the Croatian coast.
As a impressive top level view of the whole country, it lays out the diverse nature of the previous Yugoslav republic’s toursim offer, and also shows a marked change in the tourism ministry’s focus on tourism, an important sector in Croatia’s economy.
The nations tourism industry has recovered well from the devastation of the latest war in the area, largely because of a highly effective marketing campaign under the slogan, The Mediterranean as it Once Was, whose focus was on the attractions of the Adriatic coast, with its superb stone walled towns, for example Dubrovnik, and fascinating islands like Hvar.
The strategy worked, and the official tourism numbers reflect a formidable rate of growth in the sector, which continued in 2011, with Tourism Minister Damir Bajs revealing a 7.6% increase in holiday makers in the 1st nine months of 2011 of the correspondent period in the year before, while overnight stays were up 6.7%, according to local media reports.
The Croatian coast draws lots of younger holiday makers, interested by the beaches and party atmosphere, an angle that was conspicuously missing from the new video, which targeted more on the heritage, customs and variety of the country.
The ministry may be banking on the incontrovertible fact that the coast is now satisfactorily well promoted to sell itself, with Dubrovnik now a very sought-after destination, while the island of Hvar was recently named as Lonesome Planet’s number five destination for 2012. Definitely the new official slogan – The New Tourism Star of the European Union – counsels a departure away from the coast,writes tagza.com.
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