Mark Thomas - The editor and big chief of The Dubrovnik Times. Born in the UK he has been living and working in Dubrovnik since 1998, yes he is one of the rare “old hands.” A unique insight into both British and Croatian life and culture, Mark is often known as just “Englez” or Englishman. He is a traveller, a current affairs freak and a huge AFC Wimbledon fan.
Email: mark.thomas@dubrovnik-times.com
The national air carrier, Croatia Airlines, will this year mark the 30th anniversary since its foundation, with a slogan created by employees - "Creating memories for 30 years."
Over the last thirty years Croatia Airlines has carried over 38.2 million passengers all over Europe.
Croatia Airlines was founded on the 7th of August, 1989 in Zagreb under the name Zagreb Airlines d.d., an airline company that started operating in December of the same year, providing a service for the carriage of post and parcels, and then on the 23rd of July 1990 the name was changed to Croatia Airlines and the company started transporting passengers.
The first commercial flight of Croatia Airlines took place on the 5th of May 1991, from Zagreb to Split, while connections to the world began on the 5th of April 1992, with the first international flight on the Zagreb-Frankfurt line.
"From the first flight to the end of February this year, our aircraft have flown 589,500 flights and transported more than 38.2 million passengers, of which about 11.4 million passengers were on board in Croatia, while on international flights a little more than 24 million passengers and over 2.8 million passengers on charter flights," commented Croatia Airlines.
The fleet of Croatia Airlines consists of 12 aircrafts - two Airbuses 320, four Airbuses 319 and six smaller Dash 8-Q400 aircraft, and in the upcoming tourist season they will fly to 38 destinations in 24 countries. And on the occasion of the Croatia Airlines thirtieth anniversary, various prize games and surprises for passengers have been announced.
In celebration of St. Patrick’s day one of the most iconic sights inside the historic Old City of Dubrovnik was lit green tonight. The Sponza Palace in the very heart of the Old City was lit an emerald green and proves a hit with locals and tourists.
This event is organized by the City of Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik Summer Festival and Dubrovnik Tourist Board in cooperation with the Embassy of Ireland.
The annual celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, the National Day of Ireland, organized by Tourism Ireland included a record number of places around the world and in Croatia, more precisely 400 places in 53 countries. The tenth annual initiative in Croatia included record five cities and nine places this Sunday.
The Croatian National Rugby Team will play an important match of the European Nations Cup against Malta in April, and as the best possible preparation will play a friendly match against the famous Oxford University team in Dubrovnik.
Organized by the Croatian Rugby Association and the youngest member of the Croatian rugby scene, Invictus rugby club from Dubrovnik, the friendly match will be held on the 6th of April at the Lapad Stadium of 15 o'clock.
Invictus rugby club has been active in the Dubrovnik area for two years and has already gathered some 100 members. And the Oxford players will also attend several primary schools on their visit as well as training with the children before the game.
The match with Oxford University will also have a charitable character and will help raise funds for a little in Dubrovnik suffering from cerebral palsy.
It has been revealed that the main suspect in the terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, which saw 49 people lose their lives, had visited Croatia in last 2016 and early 2017.
The Australian national, Brenton Tarrant (28), attacked two mosques in Christchurch on Friday and killed 49 worshippers, injuring a further 48 people. And it now appears that Tarrant had spent time in Croatia at the end of 2016, on what appears until now to be a vacation, according to a report on N1. He spent two weeks on holiday in Croatia and visited the capital Zagreb as well as many cities along the Adriatic coastline, including Dubrovnik.
It is reported that security forces are investigating this trip to Croatia, as well as visits he made to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, after there were signs of influences from the Balkan region around the terrorist attack.
Tarrant published a video of the attack live on social media and in the background, as he was driving to the mosque, a Serb nationalist song can be heard playing. Also it appears that Tarrant wrote the names of Serbian and Montenegrin historical figures and places on his weapons.
Secondary school students from the Dubrovnik High School (Gimnazija) were joined in a clean-up action of plastic bottles from the Dubrovnik shoreline today by the Mayor of Dubrovnik, Mato Franković and the MEP Dubravka Šuica, today.
The cleaning action took place within a stone’s throw of the Old City of Dubrovnik and plenty of rubbish bags were filled with plastic waste.
“We are collect plastic waste and jogging in action called “Plastic + jogging” which is an action organised by the European People's Party and is happening through the whole of the European Union. Today it is also in Dubrovnik. I'm glad we've included young people because we want to share the way that this city and the whole world should be kept and cleaned. We want to remove plastics from our environment,” said the MEP Dubravka Šuica.
She also commented on the problem that the city has with plastic waste coming from Albania, as was unfortunately seen again on the eve of the St. Blaise Festival. “That's a big problem I have spoken in public many times about this. I have written a letter to all environmental ministers in our environment. We hope that Albania opens negotiations on the problem of environmental protection and we will be very firm that we will not allow this chapter to be closed until they comply with international conventions.”
The Mayor of Dubrovnik also made a point on the waste that arrives from Albania “They come mainly from Albania, but the employees of our public cleaning company always successfully clean up the problem correctly. The Ministry of Environmental Protection has already taken a number of measures. Our ministries visited areas in Albania, found out what the problems are and where most of the waste comes from. Projects are now being worked out how and in what way to ensure that it does not come to our region in the future.”
Due to mining work that will take place on Monday the 18th of March as part of the new border crossing being constructed between Dubrovnik and Ivanica the road will be closed from 20 to 30 minute periods from midday to 5.00pm.
The new border, which is located a few hundred metres in front of the old border, will be considerably larger than the former one and will have more room and more lanes for vehicles wishing to cross from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina.
However, the opening of the new border will also coincide with Croatia becoming a full member of the Schengen region and therefore the border checks will be stricter and this could certainly have an effect on the speed of the flow of traffic.
Every sun must set. Yes, all good things come to an end, it probably isn’t the end, far from it, more like a rebalance. And it isn’t a bump in the road more like an inevitability. If you have a half litre beer glass you can’t pour a litre into it. After more than a decade of ring the crest of wave of the tourism industry Croatia could well hit the beaches this year.
Croatia, and especially Dubrovnik which is the jewel in the tourism crown, is facing a challenging year in the tourism industry. Bookings are slowly down, and the predictions are for a minimal increase in tourist arrivals. It may not be a case of, from boom to bust, more a case of from boom to balance.
And just why is the tourism market looking less promising, well it is a perfect storm (or maybe imperfect storm) of many factors that have all come together this year. In short it’s the three B’s – Bodrum, Brexit and Berlin. With the rise of Turkey and Greece back to the levels they were some years ago, as well as destinations in North Africa, which until now have been “off limits” for tourists slowly coming back the new/old competition will mean challenging times. Whilst the Turks are dumping prices, and the Greeks aren’t far behind, Croatian hotels and tourism agencies have been slow to respond and are now seeing large holes in the reservations for this year.
I am being bombarded with owners of private accommodation who are worried that their apartments will remain empty through the summer months. Clearly this will prove a huge financial problem for renters who have buried themselves in huge loans to finance either building, buying or adapting rooms for tourists.
As one economic expert explained to me just last week, “Tourism is a sensitive and fluid business, whereas history shows us that investing into tourist accommodation makes commercial sense, the future could show that this was a false hope.”
And throw Brexit into the mix and the chaos reaches new heights. Although the British tourists who have already booked their fortnight in the Dubrovnik sunshine through an agency will certainly arrive, in fact hotels in the city are reporting that agency UK bookings are around the same as last year, there has certainly been a slowdown with individual British tourists. If Brexit brings a fall in the value of the pound then this will also obviously effect the spending power of Brits on holiday here. “We’re seeing interesting booking numbers this year. Tiny numbers from England, usual Irish and lots of US bookings filling the gaps. As Dubrovnik normally has such a large percentage of UK visitors, is this a result of Brexit?” said one apartment owner in Dubrovnik to me. Yes, it is a result of Brexit is the short answer. Instability breeds uncertainty.
And Berlin, the third B, is news from the biggest tourism exhibition in Europe, ITB, which has just been held and again opened some painful questions, such as TUI saying that hotel prices need to be dropped. And obviously the knock-on effect of this will be a required drop in private rental prices. Although this news is concerning for many it hasn’t really come as a shock for me. In fact, I would have been more surprised if double-digit growth was achieved again. There are only so many records you can break before you hit the wall. Expansion is of course limited by possibilities.
And this “correction” of prices and tourist numbers was not only to be expected by is completely normal. For years we have been living the high-life and now it’s time to expect more of a move towards value for money. Trying to sell a Fiat for the price of a Ferrari might bring short-term gains but in the long-term you are going to be left with plenty of unsold Fiats. Dubrovnik is a “Ferrari” destination and should be marketed as such. 2019 will be a healthy breath of common sense into the tourism industry, a much needed “wake up and smell the coffee” moment. I’m not being pessimistic, just realistic.
"I promise to return to Croatia," said Oscar-winning Morgan Freeman nearly nine years ago, when he first visited Croatia. As things stand now, the 81-year-old Freeman should arrive in Croatia in early April as part of the star-studded cast for the sequel of "The Hitman's Bodyguard.”
As yet there is no official confirmation that Freeman will join the crew when they start filming in Rovinj in April, however the renowned IMDB, the largest movie website, has confirmed that the legend of Hollywood will join Salma Hayek, Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson on set in Croatia for filming of “The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard.”
Filming in Rovinj start on the 4th of April and will last until the 1st of May. This sequel movie is based on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, which will obviously "played" by Rovinj.
Nine years ago Morgan Freeman was in Dubrovnik as an honorary guest of the fifth edition of the Dubrovnik Film Meeting. He spent his time in the exclusive Villa Agava and went on a boat trip to explore the beauty of the Dubrovnik archipelago in the company of host Goran Štrok.