Macan Advises Tourism Workers – Take Advantage of Ultra Music Festival
Our Krešimir Macan one of the keynote speakers at the conference “Strategic Communication and Online Advertising in Tourism” and he gave a lecture entitled “How to Use Strategic Thinking to Reach New Guests and Additional Revenue”
A conference “Strategic Communication and Online Advertising in Tourism”, organised by the Split – Dalmatia Tourist Board and ITDE concept, was held in the Atrium Hotel in Split yesterday. Renowned communication expert Krešimir Macan was one of the keynote speakers and the subject of his lecture was “How to Use Strategic Thinking to Reach New Guests and Additional Revenue”. Along with Krešimir Macan, Danni Matijaca, owner of Crunch Communications, also held a brief lecture.
In his lecture, Macan pointed out the need for Split to position itself as a brand, adding that the County has to decide on a strategy: “You have more Roman things in Split than in the whole of Rome! You walk into the city and immediately you are transported 2,000 years into the past. How are you using that?” he asked the audience. He mentioned the Ultra festival, during which tourists left over 65 million kuna revenue, as an example how this is good for business. “Ultra festival happened to this city by accident. Are you devising a strategy that will make tourists come three days earlier and stay three days after the festival?” he asked, to which he received an answer that more or less all tourist boards refuse to host Ultra after parties.
“Why can Carpe Diem sell a bottle of champagne at a price of 800,000 kunas? Because they created a buzz, and the County must finally determine what it wants to sell”, Macan stated. He explained that the key to tourism success today is offering experience and not just the sun and the sea and added a few more examples, like the one of the blogger Paul Bradbury who is not used enough in the promotion of the country, or Danni Matijaca, another PR expert who is working as a consultant in Greece and Portugal.
“Come up with a goal, followed by a strategy and then devise your tools” Macan shared his advice. “What are we offering to the Japanese when they come here, and they are coming all year round? What is the story that they will take home with them? How long will we pay royalties for Diocletian because he returned home and built a palace? What are we building on top of that? He continued, adding that what the guests want is a combination of content and stories.
Danni Matijaca held a brief lecture showing how to successfully brand and promote a destination, and it seems the director of Split-Dalmatia county Tourist board Josko Stella is quite successful at it, because, according to Mateo Perak from Profico, he made the biggest breakthrough in terms of using social networks to promote a destination.
“We believe we have to lift the bar even higher in order to provide higher quality, because, as you can all see Greece and Turkey are rising and that is why we have to do better”, Stella commented.
During this brief but very educational seminar, we were also able to attend lectures by Tomislav Zović, director of Kliker and Boris Duša, sales manager of Vestibul Palace hotel.
Tags: strategic communication, Ultra Music Festival, tourism, Dalmatia, SplitAlso read following…