Holiday Homes with a Story
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
"Holiday Homes with a Story" is a project of branding rural and traditional accommodation facilities in Varaždin County (Croatia).
Each of the 45 houses tells a story about its owners and families, but also a story about the history and life of the local people, their customs and traditions. Holiday homes are a great example of connecting and involving whole local community with the aim of preserving the traditional values of the area and their presentation to tourists.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
Varazdin County is located in the north-western part of Croatia, on the border with Slovenia, and as close proximity to Austria and Hungary. Varazdin County is making a lot of effort to attract tourist and visitors to this part of the country, which is known for numerous castles, palaces, thermal resources and other cultural heritage and natural beauties.
In order to offer a different experience to the demanding market, Varaždin County Tourist Board, is developing the project "Holiday Homes with a Story". The main goal of the project is to develop the tourist offer in the rural area and increase the number of accommodation facilities with diversification based on cultural and historical tradition as well as to raise the quality of tourism offer. The project is based on the call for proposals, which is published once a year. According to a well-developed set of criteria, the beneficiaries (owners of the “Homes”) are awarded certificates, which guarantee the quality of their offer, and enable them promotion in the media –the official web site https://myvarazdinholiday.com/ where all the Homes are presented, as well as in the catalogue and through participation in promotional campaigns. So far, a total of 45 holders of the standard of the best accommodation in the County have joined the project, and the vision of the project is to create a brand that will be directly related to Varaždin County.
Holiday homes with a story reflect the architecture of the space in which they are located (often traditional houses adapted to accommodate tourists), connect the local community, and especially local farms through products offered to holiday home guests, which can be considered drivers of sustainable rural tourism development. Especially due to the fact that they create new sources of income for their owners (now renters), but also enable the preservation of rural architecture and traditional heritage and thereby encourage the preservation and revitalization of rural areas.
Key objectives for sustainability
The project defines the criteria that each house must meet in order to become part of the project. The aim of the project is to encourage the preservation of rural architecture through its inclusion in tourism, preservation of traditional cultural and historical values of the region, preservation of natural values and social and environmental responsibility.
The promotion of tangible ecological and green production is also in accordance with the sustainable tourism development. Namely, many of the owners have their own gardens that guests can use (guests don’t buy imported food, but consume it directly from the garden). The Varaždin County Tourist Board helps them in everything through the “Varaždin kištrica” (“Varaždin welcome box”), which connects Holiday Homes with local agricultural producers and family farms. The welcome box contains a set of local and traditional products (including products from eco-production) from Varaždin County. That way, the project meets the goal of the New European Bauhaus to make the Green Deal a cultural, human-centered and positive, tangible experience.
Holiday Homes have also shown resilience to the crisis situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and thus its sustainability. Although the past year had drastic impact on tourism, especially accommodation services, the number of guests staying in these "Houses" has increased. In 2020, a total of 9.555 overnight stays (10, 35% of all overnight stays in Varazdin County) were achieved precisely in Holiday Homes. Just for comparison, a year before, they had made 4, 47 %. Although 63, 85 % of overnight stays were visitors from abroad (Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK), the number of tourists from Croatia increased significantly (36% in 2020 compared to 22% in 2019). This shows that their safety (away from crowded places), individuality, high standards and top equipment are highly desirable in the "new normal."
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Many private holiday homes (former cottages, vineyard huts) in the rural part of Varaždin County were neglected and poorly used. With the help of this project, they have been redesigned to find their new purpose in tourism.
The project includes restored traditional houses adapted for tourist accommodation and newly built houses inspired by rural architecture of the area (with the use of natural materials). Numerous private renters from rural areas of Varaždin County are aware of the importance of their own local culture and tradition, so they include traditional elements in the decoration of their accommodation. The interior is arranged in accordance with the architectural characteristics of the object and details that testify to the "story" of the house. All in all, the emphasis is placed on use of natural and environmentally friendly materials.
The best example is “Hiža Golubić” located on Vinica Breg. The autochthonous house built in 1778 was recently renovated to accommodate guests, while retaining local traditional building materials (vinicite stone and wood). Surrounded by vineyards and orchards, with many original details that exude the spirit of the past, this country house has a special charm and creates a unique, unforgettable atmosphere.
A special attention is paid both to the interior as well as to the exterior of the Holiday homes. Namely, landscape and interior architecture experts, ethnologists, experts in horticulture and art historians provide free advice (the costs are also covered by the Tourist Board). In the period from December 2019 until August 2020, they visited 19 Holiday homes in total, which added to the aesthetics and the quality of experience, making the places more beautiful, sustainable and inclusive.
Key objectives for inclusion
Through connecting Holiday Homes with agricultural producers in the Varaždin area (through the already mentioned Varaždin box), the project also encourages the development of the entire local community. The availability of fresh food, without leaving the Holiday Home, was recognized as an opportunity to better connect small farmers with tourism and involve the wider local community in the development and raising the quality of the "Holiday Home with a Story". In that sense, a service of direct delivery of groceries from the City Market of Varaždin is available for all guests of the "Holiday house with a story" (throughout the County).
A great example of connecting Holiday Homes and the wider community is renovated traditional Zagorje wooden house furnished with traditional and handmade furniture, without artificial materials, Villa Country house Pijevci in Novi Marof. This holiday home is the starting point for an exciting day trip to black truffle hunting. A trip to nature and a unique gourmet experience is planned for 10 people, and it starts with breakfast from the delicacies of the mini cheese factory Fruk and the organic manufactory Petrović. After several hours of hunting, walking in the hills and forests around the holiday home and enjoying the fresh air, socializing continues for lunch, which is prepared in front of guests by experienced chefs of the Bedem Restaurant. Each of the 5 courses, which are accompanied by top wines from the Kopjar Winery, also contains freshly found truffles.
In addition to creating an additional destination offer, it is an example of a real synergy of tourist stakeholders in this area in which, with the help of tourist boards, the owners of holiday homes, family farms, wineries and a restaurant managed to create quality content that accompanies the growing development of accommodation.
Results in relation to category
Varaždin County is for the most part a rural area of exceptional landscape beauty, valuable cultural monuments and rich traditional heritage. The biggest obstacle in exploiting its tourist potentials was the lack of accommodation capacities. The tourist offer and accommodation capacities were concentrated in the city centers, while the resource-attraction values in the rural area remained unused. Moreover, out of 22 municipalities in the County, 8 of them, which is 36%, did not have any accommodation facilities (before implementation of this project). Also, at that time (2017) only 17 holiday homes were registered in the whole County, while today that number has grown to more than 90 such facilities, of which 45 are within the brand of Holiday Homes with a Story.
It can be said that the project has certainly encouraged the local population to engage in this form of tourism themselves and to renovate their holiday homes throughout the rural area of Varaždin County. All this greatly influenced the launch and development of all other elements of the tourist offer and thus greatly contributed to the revitalization of the rural area.
Another thing worth mentioning is that this type of accommodation opens the possibility to work from anywhere (people can travel, stay in remote rural areas, in the nature, and still work, but also help the local communities to develop at the same time). This is a mutual benefit and an added value to the whole project in times of crisis, but also with return to the ‘new normal’, since it can be expected that the mode of work will change and become more flexible in the future. Therefore, the project is in line with another EU goal – digitalization, which is hereby promoted and supported. On the national level, with the amendments of the Foreigners Act, a new space for digital nomads has been opened. The Act enables their stay in Croatia in a more flexible way and gives them a special status compared to other foreign workers.
How Citizens benefit
The whole project involves the wider community: owners (renters), family farms, local producers with their traditional products, restaurants, and a large number of different stakeholders who create synergy through this unique project and thus work together on the development of rural tourism in Varaždin County.
The greatest contribution of this project is reflected primarily in increasing the level of awareness about the preservation of rural architecture, natural and traditional values, culture and encouraging social and environmental responsibility.
The creation of new sources of income, creating new jobs and improving the overall economic situation of the rural population is something that this project has largely had an impact on. It initiated a number of other activities, especially related to improving the conditions for tourism development as well as the focus on the quality and sustainability of this development. Additionally, it prevents depopulation of rural areas, which is one of the bigger problems the EU is nowadays faced with.
In order to help the owners, a series of workshops and info-days was held, which helped the owners to get the idea about the project, hear some advises and directions, but also to hear about the experiences of the owners with experience with renting their facilities. Two study strips were organized as well – to Carinthia (Austria) and Istria (Croatia).
Innovative character
Given the fact that the goal of the Varaždin County Tourist Board was to revitalize the rural areas of Varaždin County while directing the development of quality private accommodation, this project is unique and innovative and the sustainability of rural tourism has been successfully achieved.
It is a real proof that by connecting stakeholders at the local level (with the aim of retaining the traditional elements of the area) a lot can be created, and that almost from scratch. Directing and advising private renters has created a brand that is already far recognizable, and on the other hand truly unique in its elements. It is, first of all, a story that each of these objects tells and conveys to its guests, who often return. It is an excellent example of the development of continental tourism and the revitalization of rural areas. This is a unique example in Croatia, since the project combines traditional architecture, the use of ecomolgical materials in building /renovation and a set of clearly defined criteria, with the help of which high quality standards are achieved. Although there are other holiday homes in Croatia, this is the only project with a high level of brandinfg and management of private accommodation.
There is great potential and a multitude of ideas and content that can be upgraded to these holiday homes. With sufficient financial resources, holiday homes will become a starting point for gathering even more tourist stakeholders. In the very core of the project is the idea of spreading this brand to the neighboring counties (which already have expressed an interest), and to the whole country. Several tourist agencies also visited Holiday homes.
