Small Luxury Hotels Serve as an Example of Good Practice in Sustainable Tourism

Stories, Croatian Unique Hotels, are an excellent example of sustainable tourism in Croatia – most operate year-round, employ a large number of local employees relative to the number of rooms, and promote the development of the local community through an authentic offer that highlights the uniqueness of the locality. This tourist year has been exceptionally successful for them, almost all are 100% full during the peak season, and so far, the forecasts for September are also excellent.

At a recent meeting of the Stories brand leadership, it was concluded that it is necessary to reform vocational education and promote tourism professions to maximize the engagement of the domestic workforce. They emphasize that for the development of existing and the opening of new luxury hotels, new and encouraging credit lines should be designed, and clearer differentiation in the labeling of types of accommodation should be introduced so that hotels can be clearly distinguished from apartment accommodations in the market.

The group of unique luxury hotels HGK has redefined the criteria for the entry of new hotels into the Stories group and enabled the re-admission of new members.

– As part of this process and in collaboration with the Faculty of Management in Tourism and Hospitality from Opatija, we have detailed and defined the service standards of Stories hotels that will serve all member hotels as a quality guideline in terms of the level of service we want to provide to guests through Stories hotels, of course, retaining the individual uniqueness of each of us. It will also allow us to control quality among members to ensure the quality we promise – said the president of the group of unique luxury hotels HGK Nenad Nizić.

There is a shortage of hotel accommodation across the country, so it is not surprising that our luxury hotels from Istria to Dubrovnik are mostly 100% full. Erena Chan, executive director of marketing and sales at Jadranka tourism, whose Boutique Hotel Alhambra is a member of the Stories group, emphasizes that since the beginning of the summer season, they have recorded high demand for all their hotels.

– Occupancy is generally over 90%, and a large number of dates during August are sold out. September currently looks very promising, with a large number of individual reservations. We are pleased with the return of groups, although due to the situation, they are smaller groups. Despite the increase in the number of domestic guests, our key markets remain Germany, Austria, Slovenia, while developing markets such as Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic are recording significant growth in arrivals, especially in our 5-star facilities – said Chan, adding that they apply dynamic pricing based on seasonal demand for direct bookings.

In the design hotel Navis in Opatija, prices have increased by 8 to 12% compared to last season, and currently, their capacities are fully filled, and already the occupancy for September is at a level of 50 to 80%. They also have special offers in the