Dubrovnik, Day 4: Lectures and shopping

Monday, May 19^th, 2008: Our last day in Dubrovnik would be much like our last day in Sarajevo, in that our morning would consists of meetings with local businessmen/women, followed by a free afternoon spent traversing the local shops.

Our meetings today took place at a near by hotel where one of the local heads of Marketing at the local university spoke to us about the city of Dubrovnik and on Croatia as a whole and how they are struggling to create an identity and a plan to become a year round attraction to the tourists, as it currently only has a few months in the summer where tourism is big and it is the major source of income for the city and many of its people. We also heard from the manager of one of the local hotel chains who discussed the hotel industry in the city and how it is a battle with all the cruise ships, who supply many of the tourists but they only come into the city off their boats for a short while, maybe buy a souvenir and then return to their ships. Lastly, we heard from one of the MBA students there, who also worked for Abercrombie & Kent, one of the premier travel agencies around the world. She spoke on the aspects of marketing Dubrovnik as a year round tourist destination and all the challenges that it presents, as she mentioned many people, particularly Americans still view this area as an area recently out of a war and still a hostile environment, which is not really the case at all….not once on this trip so far have I ever felt fear of the area or people.

Following our meetings we were met by the owner of the kayak company that had taken some of the students out a couple days ago. She spoke on the complexities for an American owning a business in Dubrovnik, as she was currently facing many legal problems with the government trying to basically shut her business down.

Following her discussion we were given the rest of the day off, so we decided to get cleaned up and dress a little more comfortable and went back into Old Town. In old town we hit up the pizza joint for a couple slices and then walked around some of the areas we missed in our prior excursions. We also managed to do a little shopping for ourselves, family and friends. Following my disappointment in finding out that the local cravat (a tie, which was invented by the Croatians) store was asking obscene amounts (up to 700 kuna) for a single tie, we decided to head back to the hotel.

At the hotel we decided to take advantage of the great weather and donned swim attire and hit the beach/pool once more for some diving, swimming and all out relaxing. It was a great time and exactly what many of us needed.

We followed this up with dinner at the hotel and then called it a night as tomorrow we would be traveling to Athens, departing Dubrovnik airport at an early 6:30 am!

So for now, goodnight, and I will write you upon arrival in Athens.

Mike