Joint Advertising of Tourism Already Yielding Results

Joint advertising of the public and private tourism sectors in promotional campaigns and sales channels of both sectors, coordinated and operationally implemented by the Main Office of the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ), is valued at nearly 136.7 million kuna this year.

Results in the current part of the pre-season show that this joint activity has fulfilled its role.

This information comes from the Main Office of HTZ and its director Meri Matešić, who emphasizes the importance of the joint advertising model for the positive synergistic effect of promoting Croatian tourism, which, partly due to this collaboration, has maintained its positions in the international market this year despite the intensification of competitive rivalry.

The joint advertising models, of which there were seven this year, were defined by the HTZ Work Program as in previous years, and in them, along with the system of tourist boards, participate hotels and other accommodation companies, tour operators, travel agencies, airlines, and professional associations.

For this year, HTZ planned 56.2 million kuna for this purpose, but by the decision of the HTZ Tourist Council, a nearly 12 percent higher amount than planned was contracted with partners, or nearly 63 million kuna, which is the share of HTZ in this advertising, emphasizes Matešić.

She explains that this increase was contracted based on experiences from previous years that the contracted amount is realized at 70 to 75 percent, as due to various circumstances, the private and public sectors do not fully realize media plans nor their travel programs for Croatia, which also depend on the amount of HTZ’s share.

A total of 449 contracts have been concluded this year for joint advertising of Croatian tourism with 256 entities from the public and private sectors, with the majority of partners being foreign and domestic tour operators and travel agencies from Croatia and 14 countries.

This is followed by contracts with hotels and other companies providing accommodation services and tourist boards (TZ).

By models, the largest number of partners, 85, and contracts, 204, were concluded under model I, according to which domestic hotels and other accommodation companies advertise their accommodation offerings together with tourist boards.

This is followed by model II, under which the TZ system and professional associations conduct general advertising of destinations, and within which 103 contracts were concluded with 43 partners.

For these two models, HTZ allocated 36.5 percent of its total funds for joint advertising.

The largest total amount was contracted with travel agencies from Croatia for their programs realized in cooperation with foreign partners, followed in contract value by tour operators and travel agencies from Germany, France, Russia, and Sweden.

For advertising with tour operators and travel agencies, HTZ contracted 37 percent of its total funds for joint advertising, while for partnerships with airlines, which it considers extremely important for distant markets, it contracted 26.6 percent of total funds.

Among the airlines are national companies with regular and seasonal routes, including the domestic Croatia Airlines, as well as low-cost carriers that typically have air routes from multiple countries.

Matešić also notes that according to the conditions of the model and the competition for joint advertising, most of the proposed plans are intended for the pre-season, with a smaller portion for the post-season, while there was no model for the main part of the season this year.