For years, the Adriatic has been plagued by an epidemic of fish picnics, half-day sea excursions that included swimming, fishing, preparing fish, usually on a grill, and lunch. These simple excursions were, until the new millennium, the bread and butter for many Dalmatian families. A hundred euros for an excursion, likely more if it involved a larger family, was the price that had to be paid for the captain to include the boat.
However, due to the development of tourism, it was inevitable that one day this would be replaced by better service, which has indeed happened. Fish picnics are now a rare occurrence – replaced by a wide range of services, from boat rentals to full-day excursions to attractive locations and luxury cruises. In the latter segment of five-star floating tourism, this space was utilized by Katica Hauptfeld, who has developed her company, Katarina Line, since 1992 from a small charter agency to a leading specialized agency for small ship cruises in the Adriatic, partly with the help of ambitious shipowners from Krilo Jesenice, whose rented excursion vessels are the backbone of the company’s fleet.
Model of a Floating Boutique Hotel
The pandemic crisis has globally harmed tourism and the economy, which is clearly visible from a quick overview of Katarina Line’s business indicators. Five years ago, in 2020, the company recorded just over two million euros in revenue. It somewhat recovered the following year, in 2021, when it had 9.5 million euros in revenue, which grew to 43.3 million euros by 2024, allowing it to rise to the top position in the tourism agency sector, according to NKD. As noted by Lider’s financial analyst Nikola Nikšić, owner of the consulting firm Konter, a total of 1806 companies in this sector generated 1.1 billion euros in revenue last year, and behind Katarina Line, which holds a 4.1 percent revenue share in the sector with 43.3 million euros, are Nautika centar Nava with 31.4 million euros and a three percent share, Kompas with 24.1 million euros and a 2.3 percent share, and Gulliver Travel with 22 million euros and a 2.1 percent share.
Competitiveness in the sector is extremely high, as indicated by the data that only 13 other companies achieved revenues greater than 10 million euros, while the remaining 1789 accounted for a total of 72.1 percent of total business revenues.
How did the company Katarina Line manage to achieve such results? The answer lies in the picture we described at the beginning of the text. The business model of day trips, more meaningful than the rudimentary fish picnics, has been transformed into a model of multi-day cruises on luxury ships, small enough for guests to experience the immediacy of excellent service and the luxury they pay for. The trips offered are not in competition with cruises on giant ships that can be seen every summer in larger Dalmatian ports. With Katarina Line, guests can today explore the Adriatic and experience it literally in a floating boutique hotel where food and drink do not lag behind better offerings on land.
The fleet of the Opatija cruise company, according to data on its website, currently has 46 ships. These are mostly rented vessels, primarily from shipowners in Krilo Jesenice. This is the place where, when passing along the highway from Split to Omiš, you encounter a small harbor where boats are crowded together. Katarina Line has provided the Krilo shipowners with a new opportunity to modernize their excursion fleet, which has been very welcome for those shipowners who historically transported both wine and gravel, and then only in the 1960s reoriented to tourism. In the new wave of mini-cruises, the Krilo owners have replaced their wooden excursion fleet with steel, expanded its accommodation capacities and length measures, and in the last decade have built about fifty such luxury ships that are now primarily used by the Opatija company of Katica Hauptfeld.
Exporter of Expensive Services
The ships offered by Katarina Line are categorized into six accommodation and service categories, from wooden sailing ships to mini-cruisers that can accommodate a maximum of 36 passengers. Departures are organized from Opatija, Split, and Dubrovnik, offering more than forty different trips, some of which are also intended for guests who are active recreationalists. In this regard, Katarina Line does not only welcome guests in its home ports but also gathers them in Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Split and brings them to the starting destinations of the cruises. It also offers land tours, including cycling tours, for those who do not like to sail.
The revenue structure reveals that it is practically an exporter of expensive services. From 2021 to 2024, the share of revenue from sales abroad has steadily increased, from 81.8 to as much as 88 percent. The international nature of sales has evidently facilitated this tourist company’s rapid recovery after the pandemic, as it has reached high-paying client groups from the USA, Western Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, and by offering exclusively Adriatic trips, it has also positioned itself as a promoter of domestic tourism. Clearly, this is beneficial for the company as well, because by popularizing the destinations it lives from, at a luxury level, it creates a foundation for continued good business in foreign markets and a large return of guests. It is equally important that it is therefore resistant to changes in the domestic market, where even minor inflationary shocks can make much simpler summer vacations than those on a small luxury cruiser inaccessible to domestic consumers. The luxury ships of Katarina Line can be seen from the publicly available offerings. The highest class is equipped with air-conditioned cabins with private balconies, often featuring jacuzzis or some form of spa service, gourmet meals, personalized excursions, and exclusive transfers. The lower class of ships in the fleet allows for a deeper market penetration, where some services can also be supplemented at an additional cost.
