April 19, 2023 – Croatia received the first franchise directly related to the tourism sector – the consulting company for the development of quality in tourism Feel IQM doo with the IQM Destination project has developed a franchise for the management of tourist destinations, which is already attracting significant interest from many tourist countries. including Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
As Poslovni writes, the franchise was developed in cooperation with Čolak Franchise Consulting Group, from where they say that this project will not only set new standards in tourism, but also contribute to the promotion of Croatia as a tourist destination.
The IQM Destination project was started four years ago by Đurđica Šimičić with her extensive experience at the Mali Lošinj Town Tourist Board, and her team was joined by private accommodation consultant Anamarija Cicarelli and hotel sector consultant Pero Matić and together with a team of external experts, they provide integrated destination quality management services.
In short, their task is to connect all stakeholders in the destinations and focus them, to come up with a plan for the development of the destination and to enable things not to remain only on paper, but to realize all these strategies and master plans. It turns out that this task is often the weakest link in destination development.
Overcoming obstacles
“Each tourism stakeholder has its own goals and objectives, but these are often not linked to destination positioning, and stronger joint action, promotion of excellence and connectivity are needed. Although this is often expected from tourist boards, they have neither the budgets nor the resources to implement such a thing, which I personally experienced in the TZ of Mali Losinj, where we tried to implement significant projects, but in our activities we encountered exactly such limitations.
We provide destinations with very effective tools for measuring and managing the destination, as well as monitoring and implementing specific measures with which they will design and implement their ideas,” says Djurdžica Šimićić, who we discovered in the project in the city of Jastrebarsko. is just one of several destinations recognized by IQM Destination as a tourism development partner.
They work on the continent and at sea; their list of references includes Split, Šibenik, Rovinj, Lošinj, Vodice, Karlovac, Pelešac, Novalja, Vukovar, Rab, Belovar-Bilogora County and several other Croatian destinations, which will remain the focus of the team in Croatia, while destinations abroad will to be looked after by their franchisors.
And they’ll get everything from education to support every step of the way. Although each destination is considered individually according to the needs, circumstances and products to be developed, the franchise can be created thanks to the carefully designed system of tools and measurements used by IQM Destination and according to the recommendations of the World Tourism Federation.
Specific measures
The goals of the project are to increase the quality of service; education adapted to the needs of tourism workers and all entities, positioning and branding of the destination and responsible and sustainable tourism. All this is introduced with a series of concrete measurements and studies.
The IQM Destination team measures resident satisfaction with destination tourism and guest satisfaction with destination tourism, manages online reputation, then measures stakeholder (tourism professional) satisfaction and compares everything to local government plans in tourism-important projects.
During the process, 120 sustainable and responsible tourism indicators are “measured” for each destination
Everyone participates in the project – from accommodation and catering establishments to wellness centers, travel agencies, shops and souvenir shops, taxi operators and companies that manage parking lots, utilities and attractions.
Then destination standards are set, which are related to quality, local products, tradition, quality and trends in tourism. They also produce individual destination stakeholder marketing analyzes for clients, work on product development, private accommodation training and hospitality trends.
As Šimićić, a member of the UNWTO expert group on sustainable development, explains, in each destination in the advanced phase of the project it is proposed to measure indicators of sustainable and responsible tourism, measuring more than 120 indicators, according to the instructions of the World Tourism Federation tourism.
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