How One Hotel Changed the Tourist Landscape of Čepin and Its Surroundings

In Čepin, a Slavonian municipality with around 10,000 inhabitants, the idea of a hotel in the middle of the plain long sounded like a misguided bet. When Marko Pipunić decided to build a hotel right there, away from the coast and major tourist centers, the decision was often met with ridicule. It was hard to imagine that guests would intentionally head to a small place near Osijek – just for the hotel.

Today, Materra, in its first full year of operation, records high occupancy, and guests have rated it almost perfectly with a score of 9.9 on Booking.com. The hotel has found an audience among guests coming for leisure and among those arriving in Slavonia for business.

The shift is also visible in the numbers: according to data from the Tourist Board of Osijek-Baranja County, the county achieved the highest growth in overnight stays in Croatia in the first nine months of the year, and after Osijek with around 134,000 overnight stays, the largest portion falls on municipalities without their own tourist board – including Čepin. Čepin recorded 6,316 overnight stays in 2023, while in 2024, the year Materra opened, the number of overnight stays rose to 16,657. This placed it first among rural municipalities in Osijek-Baranja County by the number of overnight stays in 2024, indicating a sudden change in the tourist dynamics in an area that until recently did not have a more visible role on the tourist map.

The hotel Materra does not disclose specific numbers of overnight stays and occupancy, but they emphasize that they are satisfied with the current business results and that the project already has a visible impact on the development of continental tourism in the region.

– Since the hotel opened, we have been extremely satisfied with the level of occupancy and the number of overnight stays, which have exceeded our initial expectations. We are particularly pleased that the hotel has been recognized as a quality destination for relaxation, but also as a facility that significantly contributes to the development of tourism in Osijek-Baranja County – they state from Materra.

Such perception is confirmed by market recognitions. The hotel is a recipient of the Traveller Review Awards 2025 from Booking.com, while at the Tourism Days 2025 in Dubrovnik, it was declared the best wellness hotel of the year.

Domestic Guests Bring Volume, Business Guests Bring Stability

The guest structure of Hotel Materra is currently predominantly domestic, with the largest number of arrivals coming from Zagreb and Zagreb County. On weekends, leisure guests prevail, while on weekdays, the business segment is becoming increasingly prominent, which is proving crucial for business stability.

– The structure of our guests remains predominantly domestic. The largest number of arrivals comes from guests from Zagreb and Zagreb County. On weekends, the leisure segment prevails, while during the workweek, business traffic plays an increasingly significant role, currently generating the largest portion of total revenue and ensuring stable occupancy throughout the week – they note from the hotel.

Such a combination allows for a more even occupancy of capacities, which is one of the biggest challenges of continental hospitality, but also one of the prerequisites for long-term sustainable business outside traditional tourist centers.

MICE Segment as an Important Growth Lever

A special place in Materra’s business model is occupied by the MICE segment (meetings, conferences, and business events), which the hotel management sees as strategically important for further development.

– The MICE segment represents an extremely important part of our business, and we see significant room for further growth, both through increasing the number of business events and through the development of more complex and comprehensive business packages – they emphasize.

That Materra is increasingly positioning itself in that market is confirmed by the Meeting Star Award, awarded to the hotel at the Conventa 2025 congress fair in Ljubljana, which brings together leading MICE destinations and service providers in the region.

Focus on Quality and People

In the next two years, Materra does not plan to expand its capacities but rather to focus on stabilizing operations and further raising the level of service. The focus is on employees, improving service, and developing additional content, with a clearly defined long-term position in the market.

– Our key business goals for the next two years are aimed at further strengthening service quality, investing in employees, and developing additional content, with the aim of solidifying the position of Hotel Materra as one of the leading facilities in continental tourism in the region – they convey from the hotel.

This approach confirms that successful hotel projects can also be built outside traditional tourist centers, provided they are clearly positioned, market-recognized, and focused on long-term sustainability, rather than solely on volume growth.