According to a report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) for 2016/2017 the Swiss economy is still the most competitive in the world, while Croatia improved its position from the last year’s 77th to the 74th on the list which includes 138 countries.

This year’s list shows that Croatia made improvements in 6 out of 12 areas taken into consideration by WEF experts such as macroeconomic environment, higher education, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, market size, and business sophistication.

The National Competitiveness Council (NVK) of Croatia expressed satisfaction with the fact that Croatia rose from the 77th to the 74th place on the World Economy Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Ranking, but warned that this was just a modest improvement insufficient to successfully attract investments that would lead to higher living standards.

In addition, Ivica Mudrinic, the chairman of the NVK emphasized that positive effects could be felt only if Croatia improved its position to the 50th or the 40th place on the WEF list.
On the other hand, Croatia’s rankings have remained the same in terms of institutions and infrastructure but worsened in health and primary education, development of financial markets, technological readiness, and innovations.

A survey that was carried out among business people shows that the greatest difficulties in doing business in Croatia are inefficient administration, tax rates and regulations, as well as political instability and corruption.

At a gala party in the Klarisa restaurant The Dubrovnik Times officially marked its tenth birthday last night. The Dubrovnik Times is the first English language newspaper in the Republic of Croatia and the evening to mark the first decade was a special night for the editor Mark Thomas.

- We have printed over 1.5 million over the ten years, hundreds of thousands of articles, thousands of emails, and countless journeys around the county. And is certainly has been a journey – commented Mark Thomas.

The evening was attended by the Mayor of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Nikola Dobroslavić, the Mayor of Dubrovnik, Andro Vlahušić, the member of the board of Hanza Media, Ana Hanžeković, and the editor of Dubrovacki Vjesnik, Jadran Kapor.

- We have made a pause in the city council meeting just to attend this event and just to show how important it is to us all – commented Vlahušić, adding that Dubrovnik will achieve 3.6 million overnight stays and deserves the title of tourism champion.

Ivana Smilovic, a journalist from The Dubrovnik Times, presented the birthday party evening and a raffle was held to raise funds for a humanitarian cause. The band "Unique Dubrovnik" brought an international touch with their interpretation of pop songs.  

Check out our photo gallery of our special night

According to a guest reviews analysis carried out by the company Hotels.com, nineteen hotels from Croatia were awarded with ''Loved by Guests Awards 2016'' gold award.

The awards for the Hotels.com "Loved by Guest" campaign were based on authentic and trusted reviews, written by guests who have actually stayed in the hotels.

After analyzing 20 million authentic reviews from guests all around the world, more than 2,700 hotels from 94 countries were classified as extraordinary and were assigned the highest gold award of Hotels.com, with ratings of 4.7 out of 5 or higher.

The Croatian cities which won the "Loved by Guests" award are:

1. Dubrovnik - 8 hotels
2. Split - 4 hotels
3. Zagreb - 2 hotels
4. Rovinj - 2 hotels
5. Hvar - 2 hotels
6. Zadar - 1 hotel.

Among Croatian hotels, nineteen of them received a gold ‘’Loved by Guests Awards 2016’’ award as part of the best hotels by Hotel.com. Here are the top 10:

1. Hotel Esplanade - Zagreb
2. Bellevue Hotel - Dubrovnik
3. Hilton Imperial - Dubrovnik
4. Valamar Dubrovnik President Hotel -Dubrovnik
5. Hotel More - Dubrovnik
6. Falkensteiner Hotel & Spa Iadera - Zadar
7. Hotel Lone - Rovinj
8. Hotel Adriatic - Rovinj
9. Celenga Apartments - Dubrovnik
10. Doubletree by Hilton – Zagreb

The world's first modular desk called Deskbloks, which is currently in the prototype phase, has begun to collect funds for the beginning of mass production. 

The idea for the Deskbloks was created on the basis of a modular phone from 2013 when Stjepan, an IT engineer and the founder of the Deskbloks, decided to build a modular housing for his computer that could be exchanged and upgraded in the future without buying a new one. However, at first his idea came across many obstacles, but while he was playing a dice game he came up with the idea for a desk which would be consisted of blocks (modules) and could be, complying with users' wishes, exchanged, added and upgraded.

The young innovative IT engineer also wanted to make some things easier for himself and for future users who would use this desk in their offices, at home or the like. Thus began a development of the blocks which comprise built-in USB ports, built-in USB speakers, as well as a block with a built-in wireless charger for mobile devices.

Also great attention was given to the organization of cables because the desk was originally designed to be used for PCs and laptops, which contain a large number of cables.

The desk is made of high quality Croatian oak, which is as wood for furniture pretty massive, firm and resistant to various temperatures and conditions that users could come across. Due to oak as the main wooden material, the desk is very heavy thus ordinary Deskblocks composed of ten modules can withstand pressures up to five times greater than its own weight.

So far this innovative desk has been produced only in Slavonia, but by the end of the campaign and raising funds from other investors, the production of all Deskbloks elements will continue in Slavonia, mainly in Ilok. Apart from Croatia, the targeted market for the Deskbloks are other EU countries as well as world markets.

A news conference held on past Thursday, announced that the 26th ISTO (International Social Tourism Organization) World Congress will take place in Zagreb from the 18th to 21st of October 2016.

The ISTO 2016 World Congress is a direct continuation of the previous one held in Sao Paulo. It represents the continuation of an initiative that was launched with a goal of promoting the World Organization which together with its members works on improving social tourism.

''Driving Tourism through Inclusion'', the title of this year's congress, will focus on the latest trends of social, solidarity-based, responsible and inclusive tourism, with an emphasis on social policy as a driver of growth for domestic tourism.

The conference will be organized by the International Social Tourism Organization (ISTO) in cooperation with Croatian partners, including the City of Zagreb, the Croatian Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Social Policy and Youth, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, the Croatian Tourism Board, the Croatian Holiday and Hostel Federation, and many others.
The congress is intended for workers in the tourism industry, hotel and hospitality facilities, public authorities, trade unions, social organizations, universities and all those who are interested in social, solidarity and responsible tourism.

For the first time the ISTO World Congress will be held in Croatia and is expected to attract approximately 200 participants from all around the world.

Even though there is already a whole array of tourist facilities with high quality offer in Croatia, foreign markets still do not perceive Croatia as a destination for luxury tourism.
However, it is not at all easy for such facilities to operate in Croatia, due to high seasonality and poor airline connections with markets such as the United States and the United Kingdom, which are markets with a large number of potential guests. Branding of the luxury offer and repositioning on the market are the main goals of the Luxury Hotels Group, founded this spring within the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK).

The US market is particularly interesting, not only because of its size (one-fifth of 320 million US inhabitants travel abroad), but also because American guests are especially fond of destinations with a rich cultural and historical heritage.

Around 11 million Americans visit Europe every year, in Croatia there were around 300,000 last year. By the beginning of this September this year, there were around 266,000 American tourists in Croatia.

However, the Americans still do not believe that Croatia has luxury hotels, thus one of the goals of the Luxury Hotels Group in cooperation with the Croatian Tourist Board is to convince them to the contrary.

The Group has currently had 16 hotels with a unique offer (gourmet, wine, heritage, boutique hotels, castle) such as Vestibul Palace Hotel in Split, Meneghetti in Bale, San Rocco in Brtonigla, hotels Kazbek and The Pucic Palace in Dubrovnik, hotels Bevanda and Navis in Opatija, Life Palace Heritage Hotel in Sibenik, a castle hotel Martinis Marchi Heritage in Maslinica on the island of Solta and Hotel Bastion in Zadar.

‘’Our goal is performance of all our group members under a common brand, in order to strengthen our performance on foreign markets. Among other things, we particularly target markets such as the USA and Great Britain, which is why we have teamed up with the Croatian Tourist Board and their branch offices on these markets. We have already received the first results of our cooperation. After our promoting activities some new potential partners i.e experts for luxury travel expressed their interest to work with Croatia”, said Antonia Urlic from the Luxury Hotels Group.

‘’So far we have had hotels mainly along the coast, but we would really like to see hotels on the continent in our group. We want to promote luxury offer of the whole Croatia’’, concluded Urlic.

Promotional film of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board 'Dubrovnik and Time' won two new awards on the Zagreb Tourfilm Festival. In category The best Croatian film up to 7 minutes it has won the first place and the third place in international competition of the best film up to 7 minutes too. Romana Vlasic, director of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board collected the awards.

After Berlin, New York, Riga, Sesimbra, Baku, Lubin, Los Angeles, Portugal, Maldivi it was time for Zagreb. That means that 'Dubrovnik and Time' has won the total of 12 awards.

At the festival more than 300 films applied in several categories and 124 were chosen for the competition.. By rewarding Croatian films Zagreb Tourfilm Festival encourages the promotion of Croatian tourism - through tourist films.

Promotional movie Dubrovnik and Time keeps getting prestigious awards at specialized festivals and the next ones to attend are in Portugal and Split. 

On Sunday, the 25th of September, the 17th edition of the Terry Fox Run which was organized at the Lake Jarun in Zagreb brought together a record breaking number of 7,000 participants.
In honor of Terry Fox’s legacy in his fight against cancer, annual charity jogging /walking/cycling event, known as Marathon of Hope with the motto of “Working together to outrun cancer” takes place every year in order to raise funds for the fight against this deadly disease. This year funds raised at the Lake Jarun event will be donated to the Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb for cancer research and cytostatic drugs.
The supporters of this year's Terry Fox Run were the Terry Fox Foundation, the Canadian Embassy, the Croatian League Against Cancer, Esplanade Zagreb Hotel, Media Val, Zagrebački holding and the Croatian Ministry of Health.
Terry Fox was a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated, he embarked on a cross-Canada run to raise money for treatment and awareness for cancer research. Although the spread of his cancer eventually forced him to end his quest after 143 days and 5,373 kilometers, and ultimately cost him his life, his efforts resulted in a lasting, worldwide legacy.
In his memory, the Fox family launched a run to raise money for the fight against cancer, which is held every year in Canada and over 60 countries across the world, including Croatia.