Dubrovnik is one of the cheapest travel destinations in Europe, at least according to the website Hoppa, in fact not one of the cheapest but THE cheapest. The specialised travel website took a number of different criteria into consideration before making their list of the top European cities that are cheap to visit, including the price of accommodation, taxis, coffee, food and similar factors. And when all this data was collected the findings revealed that Dubrovnik was the cheapest city to visit in Europe.

Dubrovnik wasn’t the only Croatian city on the list as the capital Zagreb came in at fifth position.

Cheap isn’t normally the first word on tourist’s lips when they think about Dubrovnik, in fact traditionally one of the biggest complaints are the high prices. The website collected information on prices from tourist website, booking portals and other travel websites. Which would lead us to draw two conclusions, either Dubrovnik is not as expensive as we thought or that the data they used was out of date.

Here is the complete list:

Dubrovnik - Croatia

Jurmala - Latvia

Berlin - Germany

Algarve - Portugal

Zagreb - Croatia

Sunny Beach - Bulgaria

Krakow - Poland

Debrecen - Hungary

Rhodes - Greece

Ostrava - Czech Republic

Sofia - Bulgaria

Sometimes my guests ask me whether Dubrovnik is a new destination. It's not. The city's tourism is well over a century old. During this time Dubrovnik has seen plenty of highs and lows as a holiday destination, surviving three wars and plenty of political turmoil. It was visited by celebrities, members of the international jet set, royalty. Today, it's becoming more popular than it ever was. In fact, Dubrovnik is so popular it faces the same problems shared by many other top holiday destinations - overcrowding, high prices of hospitality services, inflated property prices, lack of authenticity, to name a few.

Because of all this, people are starting to raise their voices against some of the negative effects tourism has on our daily lives. Sometimes, the sentiments are very much anti-tourism. Many people in Dubrovnik fall into one of two camps – one which looks down on tourism business as inherently bad for the local people and the local way of life, and the other which believes we should allow and promote anything that will make money. Of course, neither of the two extremes is the solution this city needs.

Generations of Dubrovnik people have worked hard to build this destination up, and that should be respected. On the other hand, it is impossible to run a successful destination without some negative effects on the local environment and way of life, especially in a small place like Dubrovnik. We are seeing more and more of the city turned to restaurants, souvenir shops, cafes, and so on. This is not in itself a bad thing, but once these businesses start eating away at the space once held by local stores and workshops which are either needed for the local population to be able to function, or are representatives of local culture worth preserving, then you have a problem.

Many of us choose fast profits over long term benefit. This is not only a result of individual greed, but fear as well. Let’s not forget Croatians have witnessed some pretty erratic changes in their society over the years. Only in my lifetime (I am 35) this country has gone from a communist, socialist society where everything was state owned, through a bloody war where all the institutions and laws broke down, to an independent democratic society with a market economy, to now being a member of the EU with all the new rules and regulations that come with being a part of one huge common market. All these changes brought forth shocks to the national economy and endangered people’s personal finances. In my lifetime, we have gone through three currencies and are waiting to adopt the fourth one – the Euro – if it survives long enough for us to adopt it. All this makes Croatians very determined about earning as much as possible when given a chance, because of the uncertainty they feel about the country’s financial health.

Fear makes people do silly things (Brexit, anyone?), but it is time to face our fears and stop the damage being done to Dubrovnik as a destination. It is time to realise the only local threat to us making money from tourism in the long run is trying to make money from it by all means necessary in the shortest period possible. Without imposing certain restrictions that will prevent harmful business practices, we might… we will do irreparable damage to our main source of income, but also to our community in general.

It is time to make peace with tourism and embrace the concept of sustainability. It is the only way we will be able to ensure this city remains as beautiful and as special as most of us remember it to be. If we have to sacrifice some of our projected profits to accomplish this, so be it.
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Bozidar Jukic, AKA The Restless Native, is a Dubrovnik local with too many interests to name them all, with writing being at the very top of the list. He is a lover of good food, music and film, and a firm believer in the healing power of laughter. His professional orientation is towards tourism and travel so it comes as no surprise he spends most of his time alongside Mrs. Jukic running their own local tour company. Their goal is helping travellers from all over the world get a more intimate experience of Dubrovnik and what it has to offer. To find out more about their work, visit their website or Facebook page.
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Ana Konjuh’s US Open dream is over in the quarterfinals. The 18-year-old tennis sensation from Dubrovnik has been beaten in the quarterfinals of this year’s US Open by the 24-year-old Czech player Karolina Pliskova. The number ten seed defeated Konjuh 6.2, 6.2 to book her place in the semi-finals.

Reaching the quarterfinals of this Grand Slam tournament is the greatest success of the young Konjuh’s career and the new points earned will mean that on Monday the Dubrovnik star will have risen to the 52nd top ranked player in the world, the highest ranked Croatian female player.

“I wasn’t at my best level today for sure, but she was just too good,” commented Konjuh. “Her serve is just too good. Today on the court, she found her rhythm and took the opportunities that I gave her,” she concluded.

The British airline has released a short promo video highlighting the beauties of Dubrovnik in the summer time. In fact Dubrovnik has featured as a top destination for easyJet in their in-flight magazine along with this fascinating video.

easyJet brought the second highest number of tourists to Dubrovnik in 2015 and this year looks like breaking that record. The budget airline recently celebrated carrying their 1 millionth passenger to Croatia.

Check out this latest promo video for Dubrovnik.  

The Valamar Lacroma Dubrovnik Hotel won the two most prestigious tourism awards in the World Travel Awards in Sardinia on the 5th of September 2016 and thus confirmed its position as one of the leading resort hotels and business hotel in Croatia.

For the third year in a row the Valamar Lacroma hotel won the prestigious award for the leading business hotel, whilst in 2013 and 2015 it was voted the leading hotel in Croatia.
''The awards for the best hotel in Croatia and one of the best business hotels, where Valamar Lacroma Dubrovnik has achieved excellent results, are the best indicators of our continuous work on improving the quality of our service. These awards also represent the exceptional recognition and acknowledgement to all our employees for their great work. That is why the Valamar Lacroma Dubrovnik Hotel is always the first choice among conference hotels in Croatia'', emphasized Tea Pestotnik Prebeg, the manager of the Valamar Lacroma hotel.

The World Travel Awards have been awarded since 1993 and for the 23rd year in a row it gave praise and rewarded the world's achievements in the tourism sector. It has been praised by the newspaper The Wall Street Journal as the ''Travel's Industry Oscar''. The World Travel Awards cover a wide range of categories, whilst candidates are elected by professionals from the tourism industry thus it is truly a great honour to be nominated for this prestigious statuette.

Valamar Lacroma Dubrovnik Hotel

Instagram is really the biggest source of beautiful photos from Dubrovnik! The one that made it to the top photos today is really special. On the profile s_marga this young traveler has published a photo which shows her standing on the rooftop, accompanied with a great caption.

- Now everyone travels and you can hardly surprise anyone with your trips. People not gonna go wow if you go to Europe for your holidays. People go to same places, do same things according to guides, trip advisers, have same pictures and only few have different experiences because they dont plan when and what time visit all museums in the city but keep themselves open to adventures. I always wanted to live when our planet was unexplored when you can be the first person to step on the land, when places are still unnamed, undiscovered and untouched. When I was a kid I had a huge map on my wall with all the countries and their first conquerors and I was reading adventures of Armstrong, Captain Cook, Vasco da Gama, Columbus and Magellan and dreaming that one day I will discover something that will change the world and will make myself known. Do you think I still have a chance or everything is already discovered and found? – writes Margarita Samsonova on her Instagram profile that has over 38 thousand likes.

Then she describes how she took the photo, saying that she invaded the house of eldery Croatian man, because he had amazing balcony with a great view to the city. She adds that he didn't speak English but let them take pictures and the next thing he saw was her climbing his rooftop. We can only imagine his reaction and let's say – it was worth it.

Ana Konjuh is in the quarterfinals of the US Open! 18-year-old Konjuh from Dubrovnik has entered the quarterfinals of the US Open after defeating the fourth seed and the fourth ranked player in the world Agnieszka Radwanska from Poland. It one of the major upsets of this Grand Slam tournament Konjuh sent the favourite Radwanska without losing a set – 6.4, 6.4. Under the roof in Arthur Ashe Stadium the ace from Dubrovnik finally got the better of the Polish player, after losing seven matches in a row against her.

Konjuh, who is ranked only 92nd, jumped for joy as she wrapped up the match, her first win against a top ten player. ''I'm real excited about my performance tonight. My serve was pretty good tonight,'' Konjuh said. ''I don't think she had any answers,'' commented Konjuh after the match.

In the quarterfinals Konjuh will play against Karolina Pliskova from Czech Republic, the tenth seed at this year’s US Open. Pliskova caused the biggest upset of the tournament when she defeated Venus Williams.

The seventh “Kinookus” food film festival begins on Thursday the 8th of September. This unique event, held in Ston a 45 minute drive from Dubrovnik, is the oldest food film festival in Europe. And this seventh edition will be held from the 8th to the 11th of September with the theme of “Food Tourism.”

The festival opens with the multi-award winning Croatian documentary film Tourism! The film deals with the effects of mass tourism on the Dalmatian coastline and is directed by Tonci Gacina. The program continues with 25 different events, including a Japanese film, a Chinese film and a French film in a very varied film festival.

In the “Kinofocus” section there will be three presentations. Anton Prega, an acclaimed Albanian chef, will present his agro tourism “Mrizi and Zanave.” Ana and Bozidar Jukic will present their agency Insider Holidays which offers visitors to Dubrovnik a unique insight into the cuisine, wines and local customs of the area. And Eugenio Berra from the Italian Association for Responsible Tourism will recall tales of the Danube Delta.

For more information and a full program of events check out the festivals website – kinookus.com