Today, the 100th session of the General Assembly of the European Travel Commission (ETC) was held online, in which the Director of the Croatian National Tourist Board, Kristjan Staničić, also participated as the Vice-President of the ETC. It was confirmed at the General Assembly that the annual meeting of the ETC working group for marketing and analytics will be held in April next year in Croatia.
"This is a great recognition for our country, which will host close to one hundred marketing experts and experts in the field of market research, as well as the leaders of the national tourism organizations of ETC member countries. Special emphasis at this meeting will be on the importance of post-pandemic tourism recovery, i.e. the importance of the implementation of health and hygiene protocols and the promotion of tourism and tourism products through the implementation of joint promotional campaigns. In this context, a large global ETC campaign was announced for the beginning of next year, also co-branding and transnational campaigns are planned, which will be partly co-financed by the European Union” said Director Staničić, adding that in the future the ETC will promote sustainability, climate-neutral travel, as well as travel aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
During the meeting, the importance of establishing a common European Travel Protocol was also emphasized, with the aim of facilitating travel and implementing tourism in national recovery plans, and announced that most of the budgets of national tourism organizations of ETC member countries will remain at 2020 levels. Let us add that the ETC has four representative offices, in China, Canada, the USA and Brazil, and as part of the pilot phase, two new representative offices will be opened, in Japan and Australia. The next meeting of the ETC General Assembly is planned to be held in May 2021 in Portugal, and thereafter in the autumn of 2021 in Slovenia.
Franka Gulin from the CNTB Representative office in China is the new Croatian representative in the ETC bodies
Also, at the meeting, Franka Gulin, Director of the CNTB Representative office in China, was elected as Vice Chair of the ETC Representation in China. "China is of great strategic importance for the ETC, which has big plans in this important market in the upcoming years, especially in the context of promoting Europe as a tourist destination. That is why I am extremely glad that, as part of the leadership of the ETC Representation in China, I will have the opportunity to represent the interests of our country even more strongly in the large Chinese market, which will be the most potent in the post-pandemic period”, said Gulin also emphasizing the recent nomination of Director Staničić as Vice President of the ETC in September this year, which confirms the importance and status of the Croatian National Tourist Board as a member of the ETC.
