The award was established in 2009 and is jointly awarded by UHPA (Association of Croatian Travel Agencies) and the specialist tourist magazine, Way to Croatia. There are six categories: Catering; Events; New projects; Travel agencies; Special recognitions for contributing to the development of tourist destination; and Person of the Year.

The Tourist Board of Nin was the winner in the category of new tourist products in tourism. The award was received for the living history project, ‘Follow in my footsteps’ (Slidite stope moje’), which was a series of free costumed tourist tours of the royal city of Nin, delivered in 2021. The tours were experienced through the role-play of the poet Petar Zoranić Ninjanin (performed by IE certified interpretive guide Ivica Škriljevečki) accompanied by the Villa Hrvatica (performed by tourist guide Lores Kučaić Bobić, who joined the IE CIG course in March 2022).

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the tours had to be carefully organised, with extra safety measures. A selection of tours were performed pre-season and post-season as well as during the main season. Scenes from the Croatian novel, Mountains, were perfomed in several places.

The quality of this living history programme as a new tourist experience was recognised by tourism professionals.

Tourist employees from the Nin Tourist Board, the director of the tourist board, and the tourist agency ‘Nin turizam’ participated in the business part of the annual gathering of the Tourist Exchange PUT, which aims to meet the bearers of supply and demand for tourist services and present the content and news in tourism.

The challenge for the Tourist Board of Nin was to interpret history in a new way and supplement it with important and little-known data. The guide poet Zoranić usually took off his hat and bowed theatrically to the group with the words: “Welcome to my city of Nin – a city of turbulent past and beautiful present.”

On 7 June in the year 879, Duke Branimir received letters from Pope John VIII in the town of Nin, which was interpreted as the first international recognition of the Croatian state. The tourists during the interpretive walks had the opportunity to see various points of national heritage: the church of St. Anselm – the first cathedral in Croatia; the sacral heritage within the Parish Treasury of St. Anselmo, including reliquaries with the powers of Nin’s heavenly protectors; the globally famous Judas coin; the ring of Pope Pius II and other valuables. Inside the church, the visitors saw the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Zečevo and got acquainted with the church tradition of Nin saints dating back to the Apostles. A monument to Gregory of Nin with an interpretation of the turbulent historical period and the struggle to preserve the Glagolitic alphabet was a must-see.

During the tours, the groups also visited the Museum of Nin Antiquities, the remains of Roman buildings from the 1st to the 6th century, including the remains of the largest Roman temple on the eastern Adriatic from the 1st century. The guides performed and the guests gathered to listen to stories of the history of the city. It was great to get the recognition of the award and know that this programme was ‘Simply the best’.

Marija Dejanović holds a degree in history and works as a director of the Tourist Board of Nin. She is also a licensed tourist guide for Zadar County. She is the author of the first monograph book of Nin in three languages, and co-author of two editions of the manual, Birds of the Nin Lagoon. You can contact her at: marija.dejanovic@nin.hr.

To cite this article: Dejanović , Marija (2022) ‘Simply the best’ in Interpret Europe Newsletter 1-2022, pg.16

Available online:https://interpret-europe.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PDF-Newsletter-2022_1-spring_draft-5.pdf

In an article that I wrote for this newsletter more than two years ago with Silvija Jacić, my dear co-traveller on the path of personal and professional growth in the field of heritage interpretation, we pointed to the promising tourism development based on heritage interpretation in the Croatian town of Bakar.

Since then, between all of the achievements and steps towards further development, Bakar Tourist Board lead by its manager Sonja Jelušić Marić organised two Interpret Europe Certified Interpretive Guide courses, numerous interpretive walks and activities. Even this summer, when most of the destination management organisations found it impossible to deal with the Covid-19-related challenges, Bakar Tourist Board smoothly responded to the situation by turning its major traditional summer event into a set of interpretive walks and a few other cosy small-scale activities.

It would take us a few pages to list and briefly describe all of the interpretive and educational projects that the Bakar Tourist Board conducted over the past few years. One thing is for sure: This strange year brought Bakar’s efforts in heritage tourism into focus and Bakar Tourist Board recently received the Golden Interstas 2020 award for excellence in tourism. The International Commission of Tourist Journalists recognised Bakar Tourist Board’s efforts for its creative professional achievements in the presentation of the richness of its traditional values and culture despite the pandemic.

Bakar is not alone when it comes to recognition of excellence that has roots in a destination management’s confidence in heritage interpretation as a tool for better tourism. The tourist board of Ližnjan County in the Croatian region of Istria already received the Simply the Best award back in 2019 for the project Legends of Šišan. The Association of Croatian Travel Agencies and Way To Go magazine awarded the tourism board for its creative approach to education for heritage interpreters, used for creation of themed tours that significantly contributed to the tourism offer of the destination.

Indeed, Ližnjan County tourism board with its manager Natali Palko Zirdum has always been determined to include its incredible heritage in its tourism offer. This was also the first tourism board in the region of Istria to organise Interpret Europe’s CIG training and the first time that a tourism board manager took part in the training together with its stakeholders, which was one of its many steps towards a creative community and wonderful interpretive projects.

I will end this article with the similar words Silvija and I used in the article from two years ago: we only hope that the tourist boards of Bakar and Ližnjan will remain on this path and continue setting an inspiring example for many destinations on the rise. It will be interesting to follow the further development of Bakar and Ližnjan County as tourist destinations in the years to come. We should add to this count many other Croatian ‘interpretive tourism hubs’, such as Vrsar in Istria or the continental region of Central Podravina, and we would love to know if there are similar cases elsewhere in Europe where destination management and heritage interpretation go hand in hand – please, share your examples.

It will be interesting to observe whether heritage interpretation can really make a difference in the regenerative tourism to come. Who knows? Destinations like Ližnjan County or Bakar might be the beacons to lead the way.

Iva Silla is the author of Secret Zagreb tours (www.secret-zagreb.com) and the brand new Croatia Underrated podcast (www.croatiaunderrated.com). She is an experienced Interpret Europe CIG trainer. Contact her at: iva@secret-zagreb.com.

To cite this article: Silla, Iva (2020) ‘From interpretation to recognised excellence‘. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 4-2020, 20.

Available online: http://www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/IE_newsletter_2020_4_winter.pdf​​​​​​​