Last year Dubrovnik was minimally linked with European destinations outside the tourist season, but it seems that this year will be quite different. 14 rotations of direct flights have been announced - Dubrovnik will be connected with Istanbul and Frankfurt three times a week, with Barcelona two times a week, and with Rome four times.

Negotiations with British Airways are in the final phase, so the City and the Dubrovnik Tourist Board already count on two direct flights a week from London.

They're still working to return the line to New York twice a week, for which justification is found in the strong increase in arrivals and started negotiations for the establishment of the direct line to Brussels, also twice a week.

Fashion, travel and passion – that's what's hidden under the name FashionContainer. Team, that is made of two young multi-talented girls, Malena Permentier and Tatiane Kozijn, has just visited Dubrovnik and we couldn't help but notice their perfect photos from our town all over social media. Malena is mostly the model and Tatiane the photographer. We caught up with Malena who shared their Dubrovnik experience with us, as well as the details about this really interesting blog. The first post from Dubrovnik is already here, so feel free to take a look.
How did you decide to start a blog together?
We didn't actually start the blog together. Back in 2012 I started it on my own. When I moved back to the Netherlands from Australia early 2015 Tatiane joined up and we've been a 2 girl power team ever since.

Why did you choose travel and fashion for your topics?
They're two things I feel very passionate about and making them come together both on social media as on the blog is a dream come true! As a team we started making a lot of big travel plans since about a year and then we just asked ourselves 'why not just combine the two?'. As we were travelling and shooting projects for FashionContainer all the time,  it kind of evolved naturally.
Who are the readers of FashionContainer?
They're strong minded, adventurious and super stylish young women!
Does Tatiane ever go in front of the camera?
For our travel series, absolutely yes! But because Tatiane is the photographer, most of the time we need her behind the lens instead of in front.

Who picks out the outfits? How long it takes for you to get ready?
I pick out and style all my outfits. When I travel, I always prepare my outfits before I leave meaning that when I'm on location I don't need much time to prepare them. Believe it or not, but most days it takes me no longer than 30 minutes to get ready. And yes, that's with make-up, hair and all!
Do you adapt the style to the destination? How often do you travel?
Always! For example here in Dubrovnik, I went for lots of white, neutrals and a cute floral print here and there. Next week we're heading to Morocco and I'll choose more bright and vibrant outfits to match the atmosphere. It depends on the month, but usually we travel at least 3 times. Sometimes we even stay away from home for 2 months straight, like we did last December and January when we travelled the Caribbean and Central America.

Why did you choose to come to Dubrovnik?
I heard a lot about the unique Old Town of Dubrovnik and we wanted to see it for ourselves! We stayed for 5 days but wished we could have stayed longer.
What are your impressions?
We absolutely loved Dubrovnik. The Old Town is unlike anything we've ever seen and the views and history are just amazing.
What is your favorite part of Dubrovnik?
The Old Town for sure. Our favourite thing to do was wandering the City Walls at sunset. Just mesmerizing!

Which style suits Dubrovnik the best?
I'd say elegant with a little beach vibe.
What do you think of the style of the ladies in Dubrovnik?
It's hard to tell whether they're local or tourist, right? From what I've seen the ladies look very elegant.
What is your next destination?
I already spilled that above: Morocco! We're very excited to visit this country for the first time.

All photos made by: Tatiane Kozijn

Folklore Group ‘’Hrvatski dom Linz’’ (Croatian home Linz) from Austria will perform in front of Saint Blaise Church at 11 am on Saturday.

The organizers are Dubrovnik Tourist Board and the Croatian Heritage Foundation, and co-organizers are Croatian – Austrian Society of Dubrovnik and Saint Michael parish.

Following performance will be by folk group ''Dalmatica'' from Zadar.

On the latest City Council that was held on Monday, the mayor of Dubrovnik Andro Vlahusic said that even Beyonce might perform on New Year's Eve and that they are negotiating with her team. Also, he said that if she doesn't perform, someone who's in her rank will. That's all part of the plan of improving the winter tourism in Dubrovnik, but we must wait and see if it's realistic.

It's hard to think about winter because these days we all dream about summer, but the City of Dubrovnik has the whole year on its mind all the time. Couple of days ago they've published a promo video for Dubrovnik Winter Festival. It is made of scenes from the last years Festival and it's a nice throwback to those winter months that have passed. We'll see what they have planned for this year!

At the invitation of the City of Almeria, which is located in the Spanish region of Andalusia, Jelka Tepsic, Head of Communications at the Dubrovnik Tourist Board participated in a roundtable discussion on film tourism "Mesa del Cine", the fourth in a row, which subject was the connection between filming and tourism. As the only foreign speaker, Tepšić presented the activities of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board on the formation of the film tourist offer and the effects of filming Game of Thrones in Dubrovnik.

Almeria, in fact, as well as several other Spanish cities, hosted shooting the sixth season of Game of Thrones. A prime location was the fortress from the Arab times Alcazaba, which hosted a number of other famous film and television titles besides the mega-famous series of HBO. Almeria has a number of products associated with film tourism - map with locations of shooting all the 14 large productions (Patton, Conan the Barbarian, spaghetti - westerns of Sergio Leone, Lawrence of Arabia and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusaders), totems on locations where the information about movies and scenes, and House of the film - small museum dedicated to the history of film shooting, in which the famous John Lennon  lived for several years and his monument is located in the city center. Almeria City Administration will continue to develop the project of the film tourism, highlighting the filming of the Game of Thrones, which will be filmed this year too. Note that the part of the Alcazaba fortress in the sixth season is "playing" the city of Dorne.

Through her presentations Jelka Tepsic presented activities of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board such as themed tours at shooting locations, promotional materials of the Tourist Board, as well as promotional activities of Dubrovnik related to shooting the Game of Thrones in foreign markets. Tepsic presented the new products of the film tourism, such as festival "Quiet, please! The city and the film are in love’’, "Escape Room’’ with a theme of Game of Thrones, recent film shooting – of the Bollywood movie FAN and the recent production of Star Wars. The participants were very interested in the experience of Dubrovnik due to the filming of the globally popular series and other big productions in our city.
Tepsic also met with the mayor of the city of Almeria Fernanedez Ramon Pacheco and head of the Tourism Dolores de Haro, who was also the moderator of the round table and who have expressed her intention to visit Dubrovnik.

Although no one mentioned it until two years ago, Noa Beach Club on the island of Pag is on the 20th place of the best clubs in the world according to the prestige club magazine Top DJ Mag this year.

The competition on this list is very fierce featuring clubs from Ibiza, Las Vegas, Miami and London. Noa Beach Club is a part of a very popular destination Zrće, it has around 160 employees and almost 300,000 people visit this club every year. In the past four years this club has invested 35 million Kuna in development programs and local infrastructure. More investment is planned for the future and this year the club opens already on the 28th of May.

''Entry to the top 20 world best clubs is a big honour and recognition of our work. But it is also a big responsibility for us to be ever better in the future. Even now we can announce music performances of Steve Aoki, Skrillex and a few more names from the world DJ scene'', said the club in a statement.

The on, off saga as to whether one of the legends of football will be seen of the Croatian coastline this summer has come to an end. The best football player of the world Lionel Messi is not coming to Hvar this summer after all! It was confirmed yesterday by Marko Bralić, a godfather of Lionel's teammate from Barcelona Ivan Rakitić. He also added that the arrival of the football virtuoso was never a sure thing but only a possibility for the future.

Everything went wrong when Slavko Gotovac an entrepreneur from Kaštela whose villa 'Sancta Domenica' was mentioned as a possible Messi's location acted imprudently and told the media that Messi was definitely coming to Croatia. ''That was only self-advertising'', said Bralić, ''he also ruined every future possibility for the football wizard from Argentina to visit our coastline''.
''Messi said that he would think about the arrival. But now when the news from our media spread like a fire across Spain and the Spanish media announced the information about Messi's 'definite' arrival, every possibility of the arrival was actually ruined because he didn't want anyone to know where and when he was going on his vacation'', said Bralić.

We can only guess what Croatia has just lost with this reckless move of the owner of the villa. One cannot escape the fact that Lionel Messi has almost 43.2 million fans on Instagram. If he came to Hvar and released only one photo of him and his family bathing in the Adriatic, just imagine what publicity that would have been for Croatia.