Miodrag Spahić - Dec 10, 2022
Dear Readers,
It was Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, that quoted “that the only thing constant in life is change”. And this is even more true today than ever. We embrace this ethos here at The Collection, and we continually strive towards progress and adaptations to meet the needs of our advertisers, our readers and ever-changing world.
Each edition is a new chapter in evolution. We continue to expand our distribution breadth and now cover all areas of Ex-Yugoslavia and have added Albania to our base. One of our key unique selling points has always been our envied excellence in distribution. Delivering our publication into the hands of HNWI and decision makers. We have now gone even further with new areas where you can find us in new hotels and important relevant locations in Ljubljana, Tirana and Sarajevo.
We also now have a specially designed presentation packagewhich are hand-delivered to the top 100 business leaders in theregion. As the undisputed leader in high-end print in the region and further afield, we sometimes have the conversation regardingthe merits of print media versus online publications. Of course,we offer both, but our print version is our differentiator, our unique strength. As such, we were very pleased to read the recent poll by ‘Yougov Global Profiles’, where almost 250,000 readers were surveyed and came to the conclusion that more than 50% of adults prefer reading magazines in print. “Luxury product marketing can only be truly appreciated in print”, continued the results of the survey. This edition is packed full of informative features, which we are sure that you, our treasured readers, will enjoy. We look at the real estate market in Serbia, which is booming like never before, against global odds. The trend is similar in Dubrovnik and Istria. Sales within ‘mixed-use resorts’ with branded residences are performing at least 3 times better in Serbia and Montenegro than in other projects in Europe. This is largely thanks to the Citizenship by Investment program in Montenegro and the concept of branded residences. We include features on both stimuli in this edition.
What a tourist season in our region over the spring, summer and autumn periods! We are clearly almost back on track, postpandemic. We are delighted to see cross-border cooperation beginning to happen between countries to attract tourists to our region, which have everything anyone could ask for, and the whole region as an offer is certainly greater than the sum of its parts.
A recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released its forecasts for tourism in 2023. The report finds that global tourism arrivals will increase by a further 30% in 2023 over 2022, bringing global markets back into similar numbers territory as 2019. This is something the industry will urgently have to prepare for in the region as now, our increasing problem is not attracting tourists, but having the workforce to deliver the service and levels of quality expected by an ever increasingly exacting client.
Moreover, this forecasted increase will put further strain on the seasonality of our tourist arrivals – with the numbers arriving at peak times, and little positive effect on the low shoulder periods. With this in mind, we include a feature on golf, the proven season extender and we will continue to feature golf in future editions, with a focus on pipeline projects in the region. Moving into the colder months, the region is busy preparing for the winter season – Kopaonik, Jahorina and Kolasin, for instance, are ready to receive tourists from all over the world. Then there is food, glorious food. We look at Albania and Slovenia and how each country has redefined their gastronomy offers and deliver another reason to visit these wonderful and diverse countries.
As always, our sincere thanks to our advertisers who agree with the survey above that ‘luxury product marketing can only truly be appreciated in print.’
We hope you enjoy our winter edition, and from all of us here at The Collection, our warmest season’s greetings to you and here’s to a brighter, more prosperous and peaceful 2023.
The Collection Magazine Team
