Further expansion of offers to Croatian destinations announced in New York

Croatia was the only European country in the status of a partner of this year's edition of the New York Travel Adventure Show

Author  HrTurizam Promo

January 30, 2023

Croatian tourist agency and hers Representation in the USA they presented the Croatian tourist offer at the fair New York Travel Adventure Show. As Croatia was the only European country with the status of a partner of this year's edition of the fair, a Croatian tourist delegation led by Kristjan Staničić, the director of the Croatian Tourist Board, which on this occasion also organized a special "Croatian Pavilion". As part of the pavilion, he presented his offer at the fair 46 Croatian entities, who had the opportunity to hold their own presentations in front of the most important partners from the American market. The fair was visited by Pjer Šimunović, the ambassador of the Republic of Croatia in the USA and Nikica Kopačević, consul general.  

"Croatia's presence at the fair in New York and the general visibility of our country on the US market is multifold important for the entire Croatian tourism sector. Namely, it is our most important distant market from which we traditionally generate the largest tourist traffic, and this is confirmed by last year's data according to which Americans spent more than 1,6 million overnight stays in our country. With this, we achieved more than 90% of the results from the record year 2019, which is an excellent result. Also, we must not ignore the fact that Americans are among the guests with the highest spending and that they like to travel throughout the year. The potential for further growth is very large, and the best indicator of this is the large number of Croatian and American entities that used this fair for numerous mutual business meetings and meetings.", said the director Stanicic

During the first day of the fair, a business workshop was held as part of the Croatian stand Sell ​​Croatia which gathered more than 120 American travel agents and as part of which more than 50 tourist entities from Croatia, including tourist boards, hotel groups, destination management companies (DMC) and charter companies.

"We are extremely pleased with the excellent response from Croatian as well as American tourist entities, which in turn confirm the growth of our country's popularity among American travel enthusiasts. We have successfully maintained, and I would say further strengthened our position on this market. I believe in the continuation of the positive and upward trend, and since it is a distant market, we will focus most of our attention and activities on further strengthening of airlines and strategic cooperation with tour operators in order to make our country as accessible as possible to Americans", she stated Leila Krešić Jurić, director of the HTZ Representative Office in New York, adding that the meeting was also held with representatives of Collette, one of the largest and oldest American tour operators.

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Agents at presentations at the New York Travel Adventure Show

Also, the Croatian delegation used its stay in New York to meet with numerous partners outside the fair, so meetings with representatives were also held. Interns, a new partner in the market that represents by far the largest consortium of travel agencies, agents and travel consultants in the USA, which counts over 6.000 agencies in 80 countries and over 100.000 agents. They discussed the possibilities of establishing cooperation on an annual basis, following the example of already existing and very successful cooperation with associations such as Virtuous i Signature.  

With representatives of tour operators Downtown Travel, the largest seat lessees of United Airlines were discussed to initiate cooperation through the creation of special "tailor made" offers for different types of American agents adapted to different groups of American tourists.

With a long-term partner, the airline Turkish Airlines USA headed by s general manager Emre Ismailoglu they discussed the possibilities of further increasing tourist traffic to Croatian destinations, the implementation of joint campaigns and events, but also the introduction of new airlines for Croatia with an emphasis on flights in the pre- and post-season. 

Representatives of the Croatian Tourist Board also participated in the TravMedia event IMM as part of which meetings were held with representatives of media specialized in travel. On that occasion, the Croatian delegation met with journalists and media representatives such as AFAR, CN Traveler, Travel & Leisure, BBC, CNN, Wall Street Journal and others, with whom they discussed the possibilities of cooperation in the promotion and positioning of Croatia on the American market.

Let's add how they presented themselves at the fair, among others Dubrovnik-Neretva, Split-Dalmatia, Šibenik-Knin, Zadar tourist boards i Lika-Senj County, Kvarner and cities destination i Pula, and there are also Plitvice Lakes National Park te about thirty other subjects, agencies and hotel groups from Croatia.

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Representatives of tourist boards at the fair in New York

According to official data, the fair New York Travel Adventure Show last year it was visited by approx 14.000 visitors of which around 3.000 were from the segment of travel agents, tour operators and the media.

Source and photo: CNTB

Author  HrTurizam Promo

January 30, 2023