Exclusive Feature: This year's family summer holiday was to Croatia and Slovenia, I took us back to places we visited back in 1987 when Croatia and Slovenia were still a part of a country called Yugoslavia; 

The trip back in 1987 was one of our best trips ever and since then we had the great fortune and luck to travel extensively all over the world.

What drove us back to today's Croatia and Slovenia was the great nature, beautiful coastlines, history and great gastronomy.

The main logistical differences between both trips almost 30 years apart …

In the 1980's travelling to those parts of the world required a visa, a local travel agency to arrange your bookings in the state-owned & managed hotels. As a tourist you needed to have foreign currency in order to buy goods in so-called "Duty-Free" shops around the country. The Deutsche Mark was the king.

I only visited again shortly parts of Slovenia and the Istria peninsula in winter 2001 when I was doing development for Maritim Hotels.

So, what has changed?  In some parts, much has changed. Cities like Split have completely transformed into true modern resorts with new hotel inventory mostly small boutique/lifestyle hotels. Also international brands took place in Split.

Brands such as Le Meridian and Radisson Blu are now present in Split but not only.SLH and BW Hotels are also being represented in town.  The true great change comes from dozens of small, very good modern privately owned and managed hotels. We stayed in one such hotel called Hotel Fanat- one word that can describe our overall experience is "Great".

The shortage of newly built hotels wasn’t only covered by the smaller boutique hotels, but also the shearing-economy stepped-up to fill the vacuum. Split offers a great number of AIRBNB hosts at all levels.

So, overall, I can say from what I saw and experienced, that Split has transformed.

The same can't be said about Opatija.

Opatija which is called the capital of the KVARNER Riviera was left behind. Stuck back in the 1980's of the previous century.

We stayed one week in one hotel and used Opatija as a staging point for daily trips to different parts of Croatia Slovenia with focus on the Istria peninsula.

On a personal note, I was truly sad to see the lack of development in Opatija. It is a beautiful resort that my late Great Grand-Parents used to go to for their summer holidays at the turn of the 20's Century. The "old-glamour" of those old classical hotels and villas can still be seen but many villas stay empty and dilapidated. The customer mix in Opatija now is comprised of many Hungarians, Italians, Slovenians, Austrians and Germans. Many bus tours and far less individuals.

In Opatija there isn't a single internationally managed hotel, just one regional operator VIENNA INTERNATIONAL. All the rest are operated by local operators -  individual or small chains.

Other towns we visited were the ancient towns of Rovinj, Pula and Porec as well as the Islands of HVAR and KRK, all of them showing promising signs of development, mostly small private incentive business -  Small boutique and lifestyle hotels, hostels, AIRBNB.

Hvar island old town - photo taken from the old fortress overlooking the town

It is clear that the international players are still keeping away from Croatia. Now that Croatia is part of the EU one would have expected to see an inflow of investors buying existing hotels or developing new projects but so far, that hasn’t been the case.

What Croatia truly needs is to look at its neighbors and try to do some catching-up.

Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Turkey in the first place all moved from conventional B&B or H&B hotels to All-Inclusive, Ultra-All-INCLUSIVE Clubs and hotels. Clearly, an all-inclusive concept isn’t a perfect fit for each and every destination but it would make a huge difference in places such as Opatija.

Move away from the 1970's-1980's camping and Caravans tourism to tourists that will actually stay for 10 days in a resort for their summer holidays. Bring TUI, THOMAS Cook, Some of the Turkish all-Inclusive operators and offer incentives for developers of ALL-INCLUSIVE concepts.

Offer development opportunities for international hostel/budget hotel operators in cities and towns like:  Split, Trogir ,Zagreb, Pula, Rijeka and Zadar.

A Fisherman's village on the isle of Hvar

It is clear that the coastline of Croatia is its best tourism attraction â€" so, obviously, this limits the season. However, by allowing LCC's to fly in, one could extend the season and offer the local nightlife scene as a new European attraction for Millenials. Croatia is Authentic and young.  

The Casinos should be marketed more aggressively in Italy as well in TURKEY.

Spa, wellness and beauty improvement tourism should and could become more actively marketed.

Croatia is a nation known by its great sport heroes.  From football to Basketball, from Tennis to competitive car driving, Croatia could develop strong sport based tourism for training camps for football and basketball teams. Golf courts could also be developed.

In my view, it is clear that such a small nation comprised of 4.3 million people, needs to make best use of its natural and Historical resources.  Currently, Croatia has 7 World Heritage sites many more sites are listed for candidacy and I believe that some of those sites do deserve to be on UNESCO lists.

Platvice Lakes national park protected by UNESCO World Heritage

Croatia Fact & Figures (based on HVS Market Pulse report published in October 2014) and the Croatian National Tourism board 2013 Tourism Figures:

• Source Markets 2013: Germany: 18%, Slovenia: 10%, Austria:  9%, Italy: 9%,    Others: 54% .  In 2012, 88 % of foreign guest nights in Croatia were spent by visitors from within the EU
• Total number of visitors in 2014: Total of 12.9 million tourists out of which 11.6 millions foreign arrivals.
• Total number of overnights stayed in Croatia's Tourism Accommodations in 2014 was: 73.17 million overnights
• Seasonality: The Croatian Bureau of Statistics 2013 shows a rather highly seasonal pattern to Croatia which shows peak demand occurs in June, July, August and September, dropping to minimal demand in December, January, February and March.
• Hotels by Categories 2013: A total of 643 classified hotels: 31 â€"5 Stars Hotels, 202 â€"4 Stars Hotels, 325 â€" 3 Stars Hotels and 85 -2 stars hotels.  
• In terms of tourism infrastructure hotels only account for: 14.34% of the total beds capacity of Croatia. Private Rooms account for 45,04% and Camping sites and small camps for 25.86%  
• According to HVS, the entry of Croatia as the 28th. Member of the EU in July 1 2013 could be a trigger for future tourism infrastructure growth which will eventually result in higher numbers of foreign visitors 

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Joseph - Yossi - Fischer the CEO of Vision Hospitality & Travel - international lodging & Travel Solutions