The area of the municipality of Dugopolje, where the Hotel Katarina is located, was inhabited even during the Neolithic and the Early Stone Age, which is evidenced by its numerous archaeological sites. One of the most impressive is Vranjača, the most beautiful cave in Dalmatia, attracting many excursionists and tourists with its beauty. The entrance to the cave, the so-called atrium, has been known to locals since the ancient times, while the second part was discovered by the owner of that exact land, when he was passing through a narrow passage looking for a wounded pigeon.
Plague and cholera, emperors and tourists
Dugopolje and its surroundings are a typical example of a karst landscape with phenomena such as limestone pavements, sinkholes, abysses, karst bays, karst fields and caves. You can discover them by walking along the Mali put through the Dugopolje field. The area was pillaged by Turks and Venetians, ravaged by plague, famine and cholera, but today it is visited by tourists from Spain, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Two emperors also passed through Dugopolje: Francis II. (1825) and Francis Joseph I. (1875).
Fatherland of the top athletes
Many top Croatian athletes come from Dugopolje. The most famous among them is the legendary marathon swimmer Veljko Rogošić, the four-time world swimming marathon champion and a kind moustached man, who is best remembered by many generations for the television ad for Pipi. In addition to the marathon swimmer of all time, who, by the way, made big money also as a mannequin and shot more than 120 commercials, the famous Hajduk footballer Jurica Jerkovic and Igor Culin, one of the most successful rowing coaches, the former coach of the Croatian national rowing team and the winner of the bronze Olympic medal, also come from Dugopolje.
Dugopolje – the centre of the world
While some of the top athletes come from Dugopolje, others came here, believe it or not, from Africa! In search of today’s top footballers, the Dugopolje Football Club hosted the former hero of the young Nigerian national team. Bernard Tsumega Bulbwa brought the Africa Cup of Nations title to his national team in 2015, and played for the Tunisian Espérance and the Moroccan Mouloudia.
“Do I need to explain it to you for the millionth time?!” we sometimes ask angrily when our interlocutor(s) doesn’t understand very well what we are explaining to him. When we have a larger audience in front of us, at a business presentation or a conference lecture, there’s no room for anger, instead we must be precise, clear and loud.
In order to give a successful presentation, there are some principles to keep in mind:
1. Tell a story
Your business presentation, of course, will not be imaginary. Nevertheless, you should try to connect with your audience – whoever they may be. Engage your audience emotionally and you’ll be more likely to persuade them.
2. Keep it simple
Don’t overwhelm your audience with a lot of thematic directions. Try to give a presentation on three to five main points. Don’t annoy the audience by including everything you know, presentation is not a facts competition.
3. Have an answer to everything
There is a good chance that you will have to answer the questions at the end of the presentation. This means that you need to know all the potential answers. Although you will not use all of the information in your presentation, you must prepare it in additional materials.
4. Speak naturally
Don’t try to sound smart during the presentation of your company. Instead, speak as naturally as possible with conversational vocabulary. The goal of the presentation is to communicate clearly and articulately. Don’t sound like you’re teaching in class.
5. Don’t put everything on slides
We are all accustomed to using slides and visuals in our presentations. But don’t put all the information on the slides. If you read information from the slides, it gets boring, and that’s something your audience could do on their own.
The presentations will be particularly effective in a congress hall, a conference room and meeting rooms of the Hotel Katarina in Dugopolje, equipped with the latest presentation technology, from wireless microphone and laser pointer to flipchart and high-resolution projector.
September is the right time to prepare the strategies for giving away business gifts for Christmas holidays. First of all, you need to define the number of business partners or employees you will give presents to, then determine the budget, the date and the method: you want to send the gifts by mail, you want to give them during the Christmas party or you want to arrange for an informal get-together and personally give the gifts.
When you define all of that, here comes the hardest part- what kind of a gift to give? Everyone has their own idea of what they like, so they will fire away suggestions one after the other, from a cup with a funny message to an electric scooter. In addition to the budget, there is probably a certain gift policy, more precisely, restrictions when it comes to giving and receiving gifts, which should be also respected.
After meeting such requirements, one should take action and get in contact with a supplier specialized in business gifts. There are many of them online, and the range of gifts in terms of style and price is huge, so sometimes it’s hard to make a decision. Try to be original, but not banal. Remember: a gift for business partners should be functional. For holidays, for example, one company gave away ties with its logo, slogan and year of establishment, which proved to be a complete failure. Here are some of our suggestions that you definitely can’t go wrong with:
Although potential attendees will find out both place and time of your event if you advertise your conference, education or seminar in the traditional media, this information will not very be important in the decision to attend it.
That is why you need to create a digital home for your event, a website that will provide all the necessary information and both registration and accommodation booking options. Various digital channels, offering a content that will maintain the quality of the event, will lead to it.
In order to succeed, follow these five rules:
1. Start on time
Don’t leave everything for the last minute, start early enough to get potential participants interested. We are bombarded with information from all sides, plans are being made a year in advance, so early bird announcement and registration is a necessity.
2. Select the channels that your target audience uses
Promote your content on defined channels. If you have a strictly business audience, then use LinkedIN, Twitter and Facebook, and consider announcing the event on Instagram.
3. Create content that will attract attention
Think about the ways of introducing speakers, key topics and educational content that will interest those attendees who are unaware of the importance or usefulness of education.
4. Set aside a part of your budget for ad campaigns
Ad campaigns will boost online activities and attract more potential participants.
5. Collect and share attendees’ comments
After the event, collect the comments and praises provided by the attendees during or after the event because that is the highest quality assurance you can get.
If you decide to organize such an event at Hotel Katarina, that fact alone, which you will spread through the digital channels, adds value to your promotion.
This is probably one of the most popular business activities among employees of all types of companies. It used to be called trade union trip and it was financed from trade union membership fee. But today companies are happy to practice it to strengthen employee relationships and, as the name of the activity implies, to build a team out of individuals.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, so the team won’t be either, but regular practice of bringing colleagues together in an environment outside the workplace and with activities that aren’t exactly business defined will certainly contribute to a peaceful and agile coexistence.
The organization of a team building, in almost every case, results in a moral empowerment and transformation of colleagues into friends, and with standard socializing over food and drinks, team „games without borders“ certainly contribute greatly to the rapprochement.
Team building is a necessity, which is proven by a research conducted by Source Consulting Group:
– Prior to team building, only 39 percent of the employees believe that they don’t cooperate with their colleagues sufficiently;
– They almost completely unanimously (97 percent) agree that creating team strengths would improve task solving and project realisation;
– As many as 99.1 percent of the employees want to discuss some issues honestly and effectively in a place where they will not be repressed.
Although this perception exists, team building is not just a silly sack race or a paintball clash, but a place where communication and collaboration come together in the best proportion and where these skills become increasingly important. The creative possibilities are endless: from joint songwriting and shooting movie scenes to competitive cooking or rafting.
All of that can be achieved effectively at the Hotel Katarina, which offers a large accommodation capacity, wellness and conference facilities, as well as the immediate vicinity to major Dalmatian destinations, making it the ideal choice for the your next team building location.
If you are wondering why some of your competitors have better seminars or congresses with more participants, it is time to think about what they are doing better than you. Hotel Katarina, as the leading hotel for congress tourism in Central Dalmatia, will help you with that. Our top experts offer you five most important tips for preparing your best congress or seminar.
1. Three words will reveal you the most important thing for a good congress or seminar: preparation, preparation, and preparation. Do not wait for the last minute to start with event preparations. Give yourself plenty of time to get the best lecturers, secure a good date and the best location. Then, you will have a great opportunity to also have the right audience at the event. The rest is routine.
2. The best lecturers will be happy to collaborate with you if you give them enough time to prepare for the lectures, and if you notify them early enough, so you could “save the date” on their calendar on time. You already know that the best ones are also the most wanted ones, so be the first and ahead of the competitors.
3. The date of the event may seem irrelevant to you, but it is extremely important. Do not organize big events at the time others organize them, or if public, religious or school holidays take place during those days. You know that Croatians love to take a long weekend, and for some events, such as major festivals, the dates are known well in advance. Follow the others in order to better position yourself.
4. Choosing the location is crucial. Numerous studies have shown that people bring to mind, besides congresses or seminars, mostly ambience and food. Hotel Katarina is not unduly the first choice of congress and seminar organizers in Central Dalmatia. In addition to receiving as many as 1200 participants in its congress hall, a special attention is dedicated to its design, service and menu selection. Our guests are situated on the location that is difficult to escape from, but we will always and happily assist you with seemingly impossible requests. Likewise, when they complete their business activities, the surrounding area offers dozens of different sorts of entertainment. That is why all our lecturers, organizers and other guests are delighted with the authentic location, offer and food. And for everything else, you know what they say: we will find the way.
5. The audience at your seminars is your walking advertisement. Spoil them, so they could spread the good word and recommend you to the others. Offer them the best choice of price and quality, from seminar rooms to accommodation, wellness, food.
Or better yet, let us spoil them. And we leave it to you to only take care of the lecturers.
Hotel Katarina is offering you the best of congressional tourism in the best location: a stone’s throw away from the motorway, at the door to Split and all of its beauty, but also close to the untouched nature of Dalmatian Zagora. In addition to boasting the largest congress hall in Dalmatia, there is also a top-notch congress hall, as well as meeting rooms, which we have no doubt will inspire great new ideas for business success. Whether it’s congresses, confrences, seminars, trainings, presentations, meetings or an unforgettable team building experience- after which your employees will all be as one- simply by choosing Hotel Katarina you’ve already done a superb job!
With one congress hall, one conference room and four small meeting rooms all equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, Hotel Katarina will satisfy all your needs and exceed your expectations. The latest information technology, rental of computers and audovisual equipment, unmatched access to high-speed internet, a seperate exhibition space and our professional staff at your disposal are just some of the reasons why increasing numbers of both domestic and international companies are organising their business meetings at Hotel Katarina
With it’s newly renovated spaces, Hotel Katarina offers you the highest technological standards, the service of highly professional staff, impeccable organisation and technical support as well as a pleasant and comfortable ambience which will entice you to visit again. In accordance with your wishes and needs, our rooms can be rented for a couple of ours, for half a day, or for several days. The layout of the space can be altered and adapted to fit your vision, and we can also offer to arrange to sece drinks during the breaks, either in the space itself or in the pleasant ambience of our bars. If you want to delight your guests with an unforgettable and authentic gastronomic experience, let us thrill them with top Dalmatial specialties from our menu.
Are you coming to a business meeting in Split? Fantastic, let Hotel Katarina become your haven: close to the cultural and historical sights and modern benefits of the Dalmatian capital, but far enough away from the crowds and the bustling rhythm of the city. For recharging your batteries, we recommend trips to Central Dalmatian islands or gastronmic adventures to the Dalmatian Zagora family farms (OPGs), which are located barely fifteen minutes away by car. Let our kind and professional staff help you plan your activities and search for new experiences, they can barely wait for your stay to become a memorable experience.
For all inquiries and additional information, we are at your disposal.
If you want to impress your attendees, organise your event in the biggest congress hall in Dalmatia! The newly-built hall bpasts an impressive 1250sqm and is architecturally and infrastructurally adapted for three simultaneous and independent events.
With a capacity of 1200 spaces in a lecture layout and 900 spaces in a banquet layout, the confress hall is ideal for your congresses, seminars, presentations, bigger and smaller meetings, exhibitions, fashion shows…
The hall is equipped with state-of-the-art technology. Amongst other things, there is a wireless microphone, a WGA cample, a MediaPointer, a laser pointer, a flipchart and a projector, and the entire area is covered by high-speed internet
This hall is the ideal choice for meetings with larger numbers of attenddes and organisers who require the highest standers for presenting their business.
The conference room is equipped with all the audio-visial technology needed (LCD projector, screen, TV, video, flip chart, laser pointer, wireless internet) for holding a conference, as well as being ideal for any sort of presentation, seminar, and business meeting. It extends to 208sqm and is ideal for all presentations, educational or business events.
The conference room is located on the first floor of the hotel and has a capacity of 150 people in a lecture setting, 110 in a classroom setting, and 80 in a banquet settings.
If you’re hosting workshops or you’re in need of space in which you’ll organise additional meetings or team building exercises, we also have four smaller meeting rooms available that have a capacity for 30 people. These rooms, just as our conference room and congress hall, are equipped with state-of-the-art audiovisual technology: you’ll have a MediaPointer, laser pointer, flip chart, and of course, free internet access available to you.
For a successful organization of seminars, conferences or teambuilding, the most important thing is to organize quality and fun side activities, and there are plenty to choose from near Hotel Katarina.
Business travel organizers know that – whether it is a conference, a seminar, a congress or a gathering of company’s employees – one of the most important things is to provide unusual ‘extracurricular’ activities the participants will ultimately remember the event by. Hotel Katarina, thanks to its perfect position and good connections with tourist routes throughout Dalmatia, is able to plan unique experiences that will be remembered for a long time. In the immediate vicinity of the hotel, there are also the thousand-year-old town of Split and the wonders of nature scattered around the islands of Central Dalmatia whose beauty is breathtaking, and the lively villages of the Dalmatian Hinterland that offer authentic experiences you cannot find anywhere else in the world.
If you want to see something really exotic, in the villages of Dalmatian Hinterland you can watch the so-called bikijada or bullfighting. Every year, the eco-ethno village Škopljanci – Radošić organizes Seoska olimpijada (Rural Olympics), which focuses on competing in long jump, throwing stone from the shoulder, piston pulling and tug of war, arm wrestling for women and men and the cherry on top: bullfighting.
There is a handful of such events and manifestations all along the coast, as well as in the hinterland. If you are more tempted to taste delicious and homemade food, you will discover Dani pure, komina i bronzina (Days of fireplace, polent and pots) or Fešta Sv. Mihovila (St. Michael’s Days) in Trilj, and Nacionalni sajam pršuta i suhomesnatih proizvoda (National Fair of Prosciutto and Dry-Cured Meat Products) in Sinj. For those who have a gentle spirit, the Blues Festival in Trilj is a real treat. For those who prefer to relax by doing sports activities after meetings and presentations, Dalmatia offers so much – from rafting on Cetina and visits to Krka National Park, to road running and bicycle racing, as well as authentic tournaments like the one in boules games.
To get acquainted with colourful costumes, customs, songs of the Dalmatian karst and hinterland, it would be worth visiting it during the “season” of carnivals, when there is no shortage of mischievous fun and teasing songs of young men just before getting married, like those in Neorić and in Sutina, whose carnivals have lasted for over 300 years. There are just a few of those who did not hear about Glumci u Zagvozdu (Actors in Zagvozd), a summer theatre festival during which the entire Imotski region breathes and lives for the top performances of the popular theatre shows.
If you want something really close to the hotel, with a spectacular view over Split and the islands, at the same time you can step into the places, the cellars and the walls where the actors of the most famous TV series Games of Thrones set foot, on which you can read more about in our blog Game of Thrones in Dalmatia.
And finally we saved the best for last, and that is a visit to the famous natural wonders of Dalmatia, the best experience which Hotel Katarina can organize for its business travellers. From Split’s main promenade Riva, approximately 20 minutes from the hotel, you can visit by fast speedboat Golden Horn on the island of Brač, the famous Blue Cave on the island of Biševo, the most beautiful beach on the Adriatic coast Stiniva on the island of Vis, the Green Cave on the island of Ravnik and Pakleni Islands of the island of Hvar, in just one day. So much beauty in just one day requires only one thing: a lot of gigabytes on the camera memory card.
Five key filming locations of the most popular series of all time are located in the immediate vicinity of our hotel. Come and explore all the best of Essos and Westeros!
With its fairy-tale locations, God-given natural beauties and incredibly preserved monuments of a millennial history, Dalmatia proved to be the ideal scene for some of the key locations of the globally popular “Game of Thrones”. And the Hotel Katarina’s position is ideal for their sightseeing. Here’s why:
Šibenik, playing Braavosin the fifth season of the series, is only half an hour’s drive away from the Hotel Katarina, and since our hotel is located near the motorway, in less than 3 hours you can reach the “Game of Thrones” main location, our famousDubrovnik, which perfectly played King’s Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms, whose iron throne represents the aim of almost all the protagonists of the most popular television series of all time.
We were in China, and it was wonderful – and exceptionally successful!
The tenth business anniversary of the Hotel Katarina with 60.000 overnight stays was also our most successful year – of course, we will do our best to again outdo ourselves in 2019 for the umpteenth time – but did you know that the biggest increase in interest we recorded was among our guests from China? The most populous country in the world is currently ranked second among the strongest emissive markets our guests come from, and after our visit to the biggest Chinese tour operators, it won’t surprise us if at the end of the year China suddenly appears at the very top of our internal top list.
Yes, we were in China, and it was wonderful!
Speed dating in Beijing
After a 13-hour flight, on March 24th, we landed in Beijing, and even our extremely overburdened assignment schedule could not stop us from falling thoroughly in love with Chinese culture, beautiful temples, spacious promenades and, of course, truly superb shopping. The reason for our Chinese adventure was our participation in the workshops “Experience Croatia, Feel Slovenia”, where we maximized the synergy of Croatian and Slovenian tourism, in the spirit of good neighbourly relations, for more successful joint step forward in this immensely huge market.
Our Chinese hosts were truly amazed by the first workshop in Beijing. Representatives from Chinese agencies sat at their tables, while we were moving from table to table just like on a speed date – eight minutes per table, 25 tables! Allow us to flatter ourselves a bit: we were perfectly prepared. We had our own interpreter and all of our promotional materials pre-translated into Chinese, which had proven to be a huge hit, just like a scented lavender bouquet and anti stress balls with our logo on them, that won the hearts of our hosts. To top it all, our contest that included questions such as “Where is the world’s best footballer from” or “Where was “Game of the Thrones” filmed”, allowed a few lucky ones, who gave the correct answers, to win a trip to Croatia.
We were surprised by the number of agencies that knew about us and were familiar with our work, even though we did not previously do business together. The key word here is “previously”, because in Beijing we created contacts that already generated new business cooperation. The Hotel Katarina is recognized as a premium hotel, ideal for a groups, but also for individual guests looking to explore our coast and Dalmatian inland, our hotel being an ideal starting point for all Dalmatian adventures.
Croatian wines, that our hosts fell in love with at the first sip, gave even extra strength to their enthusiasm for getting to know our beautiful places and sights, both cultural and historical, as well as gastronomic.
Shanghai is ours as well!
After Beijing, we landed in the most populous city of the most populous country. Insomnia could not bring us down, as much as the adrenaline kept us up, so we truly enjoyed each moment spent in Shanghai, where we felt like real celebrities, because for some reason people kept asking us to take a photo with them. We didn’t turn anyone down, and with a bit of help from Google Translate, even the language barriers couldn’t remain insuperable. Our five-star and 54-storey hotel in Shanghai shocked us at first, but soon after, it completely captivated us, just like our delighted workshop hosts, with whom we made the most out of our well-established 25×8 formula. During our joint lunch, we thoroughly practiced our networking skills, and we established valuable contacts with 25 of the largest tour operators who will already this season make sure our hotel becomes the centre of the Chinese tourist diaspora on the Adriatic.
***
Once we write this blog, we can finally turn off all the electronic devices and indulge in the consequences of our epic jet leg… But, nevertheless, it was worth it. Thanks, China!
