{"filename":"NewsController#defaultNews","ID":"353","naslov":"Marina Franoli\u0107: Most investors looking at investing in Croatia will first consider investing in Zagreb","CustomFieldsValues":{"dodatno_polje":"","headingImgHeight":""},"link":"marina-franolic-most-investors-looking-at-investing-in-croatia-will-first-consider-investing-in-zagreb","heading":"In this interview, Marina Franoli\u0107 talks about the creation of the regional hotel investment conference, the impact of the present crisis on Bench Events, and the future of the meetings and events industry","novost":"<p><strong>Marina Franoli\u0107<\/strong>, Managing Director Central and Eastern Europe at Bench Events, began her hospitality career at the Glion Institute of Higher Education and the Hotel Savoy, Rocco Forte Group, in Florence. After several years away from the hospitality industry, she established her own company with the goal of bringing global trends to the regional industry, and launched Adria Hotel Forum with an idea of showcasing world trends in 2013. &nbsp;Within a couple of years, Adria Hotel Forum became the only internationally recognized hotel investment conference in South-East Europe. Adria Hotel Forum has had seven international conferences held in Zagreb and one in Belgrade. When Bench Events acquired Adria Hotel Forum in 2019, Marina Franoli\u0107 became its Managing Director for Central and Eastern Europe. Recently, Marina Franoli\u0107 has been working on a new conference consisting of a series of events concerning Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, and developing CIS &ndash; IDEEA Hotel Investment Forum.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Seven years ago, you launched the largest regional investment conference in the region. The Adria Hotel Forum (AHF) has had seven international conferences in Zagreb and one in Belgrade. Can you tell us more about how the conference was launched and why you chose Zagreb again after organizing a conference in Belgrade?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The idea to organize this type of conference started in 2012, when Croatia was still engulfed in the ramifications of the 2009 crisis. My professional expertise is in the hospitality industry, and I wanted to go back to my profession and to apply many of the things I learned in school and while working abroad that were not present enough in the region in 2012. My wish to introduce global trends and encourage a dialogue on how the industry could grow in the future led me to the idea of launching the Adria Hotel Forum. The first three conferences were difficult to put together, but later, when it became apparent that so many agents in the industry were interested in participation and networking, the conference proved to be very successful. From the start, Adria Hotel Forum was planned as an annual regional conference that would take place in a different city every year. However, as I have said, the initial years were difficult and I felt that operationally things would be easier for me as an organizer if I stayed closer to home. AHF is a regional conference with participants coming from countries in the region and therefore an international conference (with international participants year after year) even though the conference was based in Zagreb for a number of years. In 2018, we felt that we were ready for a move to a new location. Thanks primarily to our cooperation with Crowne Plaza Hotel in Belgrade, we were able to hold AHF in that hotel in February 2019. Shortly thereafter, we started negotiating with Bench Events, an international company that was interested in acquiring Adria Hotel Forum, and completed the contract on 1<sup>st<\/sup> July 2019. As people in Bench Events felt that hotel investment market was showing more interest in Croatia than other places, AHF returned to Croatia in 2020. At the same time, within Bench Events we have started preparing for a new hotel investment conference, which we are calling IDEEA, and which is planned to have two smaller sized events focused on local markets every year, with AHF as one of these two annual events. AHF managed to hold the 2020 conference just before the borders closed, but other IDEEA plans have remained on hold (including the conference in Prague planned in May 2020 which is now postponed until November 2020). I hope the situation will stabilize so we can continue working on this great idea.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Croatia needs quality developer companies for <em>greenfield<\/em> projects<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Would you say that Zagreb makes a good meeting place for discussions on hotel and tourism investments in the region? What have some of your many international panellists and conference guests from top hotel businesses said about Zagreb and how would you describe their interest into investing in Zagreb?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Zagreb is indeed an excellent meeting point for discussions on investments in the region, as are some other cities in Croatia and in some other countries. Just as Croatia and the Croatian Ministry of Tourism seized the opportunity to host international investors in Zagreb, other countries have also realized the potential of hosting AHF in their countries. Bench Events works with hundreds of international investors, investment funds and investment managing companies and I believe that it would be in the interest of any country to host this conference and present investor opportunities. All our international guests are interested in investing in Croatia; that is after all why they have come to AHF. In addition, most investors consider investing in large cities first, as they stay open throughout the year and present a more profitable and stable investment compared to tourist (coastal) destinations. Another important detail I feel I should mention is that most investors are interested in investing into existing, operational hotels rather than in new projects. The reasons are mostly the short investment return period (five to seven years), which is too short a period for building a hotel and putting it on the market. It is for this important reason that I would like to stress that what Croatia needs the most in this respect are quality developer companies that have the capacity to realize greenfield projects which they can then sell to the said investors. This is how it works everywhere in the world, but in this region their percentage is still a single-digit number.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Zagreb&rsquo;s meetings and events offer is good but can be better<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How would you describe the meetings and events offer in Zagreb? What are its advantages and what needs to improve?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The offer in Zagreb is good but limited. It is difficult to talk about investing into conferences at a time like this during the COVID-19 global crisis, when it is virtually impossible to organize any kind of event. However, I do believe that MICE industry will survive and that it will start to be back in the market by 2021. Zagreb has a lot of potential in terms of what the city can offer to the meetings and events industry, but unfortunately, during the last ten years, not much of this potential has been realized. The new Hilton Garden Inn, the hotel where we held AHF 2020, has remarkably modern conference halls located on the top floors of the hotel building, with great views, contemporary equipment and all the potential to host both large and small events. When conferences and meetings are concerned, several important elements must come to the fore: hotel capacity (halls and accommodation units), connectivity with destination and support service. The present capacities in Zagreb are adequate for small and medium events, but it would be quite a challenge for anyone wishing to organize an event on a larger scale. This goes to show that there is still a lot of potential to use and a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As of 2019, AHF is part of Bench Events, a company involved in organizing international events focused on investment in hospitality, catering and aviation industries. In what ways has this acquisition improved the organization of Adria Hotel Forum?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Adria Hotel Forum had international recognition before it joined Bench Events, which was something that we worked on for many years. I believe it was an important element for Bench deciding on AHF acquisition. As part of the Bench Events Company, AHF has access to senior management level contacts, and this has improved the overall perception of importance of both the conference and the region. Now that we have so many options, I hope the conference will bring many more investors to the region and encourage more investments.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How has Bench Events coped with the new crisis and event cancellations?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The first event we cancelled was <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ahic.com\/\">AHIC&nbsp; - Arabia Hotel Investment Conference<\/a><\/span> that was to take place in Dubai in April 2020. All the subsequent events were also cancelled, including <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ideea-forum.com\/\">IDEEA &ndash; Investment and Development in Eastern Europe Assets<\/a><\/span>; <span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.op-re.com\/\">OpRe &ndash; Operational Real Estate Festival<\/a><\/span>, <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ahif.com\/\">AHIF &ndash; Africa Hotel Investment Forum<\/a><\/span>, AviaDev <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviationdevelop.com\/europe\">Europe<\/a><\/span> and <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviationdevelop.com\/africa\">Africa<\/a><\/span>. However, Bench has been very successful in organizing virtual events, Hospitality Tomorrow 1 and <span><a href=\"http:\/\/hospitalitytomorrow.com\/\">Hospitality Tomorrow 2<\/a><\/span>, as well as <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.realestate-tomorrow.com\">Real Estate Tomorrow<\/a><\/span> on June 16<sup>th<\/sup> 2020.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Personal contact, so important in closing business deals, has no substitute in virtual events <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>During the last two months, you have organized a number of different digital events, from webinars to conferences. What are the good points and what are the challenges of organizing virtual events and how do they compare to live events?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yes, we have organized three large virtual conferences. The first one, Hospitality Tomorrow, had over 7,000 participants; Hospitality Tomorrow 2 &ndash; Follow the Sun (an event that lasted 13 hours with panellists from all over the world, starting from China to India, the Middle East and Europe and finally US), had 5,000 participants, and the last virtual event we organized was Real Estate Tomorrow on 16<sup>th<\/sup> June 2020, with 500 participants. Organizing this last event was different in that investors were guests of the event organizer, while all the other participants were asked to pay an admission fee. It should also be noted that 90 percent of the investors were people holding senior management jobs, so the conference concept was a bit different. Our plans include organizing one virtual conference every month, with special emphasis on a particular market or region, and deciding, sometime during the third trimester, what we would like to do next, depending on the economic and epidemiological situation. The advantage of our virtual events has been that as there was no travel involved, panellists and other guests readily accepted our invitation to participate in the event. The disadvantage has been a lack of personal contact, which is normally an extremely important part of the event. We have tried to make up for this flaw through online applications and different networking models, but nothing can really replace personal contact, which is so important in closing business deals.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How will live events look in the future and how in your opinion is this situation going to affect the meetings industry?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is safe to say that the meetings industry will probably suffer from the consequences of the crisis longer than some other industries, primarily because of the ban on large meetings and the fear of large gatherings. On the other hand, I think that organizing large meetings in locations and hotels that can guarantee the highest standards in hygiene and sanitation will play an extremely important part. We will also need to be very creative in planning and organizing our programmes, but I am sure that the meetings and events industry will bounce back.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The new conference you have been working on in Bench Events is a series of events focused on Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, the IDEEA Hotel Investment Forum. The first event in the series has been announced to take place in Prague next fall. If the circumstances are favourable, are you planning to organize the next AHF in Zagreb? Would you have other events planned for Zagreb?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unfortunately, I cannot answer this question at this moment. We are monitoring the situation and have made no decisions as of yet. There has been a lot of talk about a second wave of the Coronavirus, when the borders will not close but some restrictions are certain to be imposed. If it does happen, large gatherings are going to be impossible. We will continue to monitor the situation on the ground and in Europe on a daily basis, hoping that soon we shall be able to organize IDEEA and other conferences.<\/p>","tags":"","FileName":"c001483e-55c7-4152-8f2d-f4b5c650f49c.jpg","IDKat":"205","MediaFilePath":"media\/news\/","datum_od":"29.06.2020","datum_do":null,"PagesLink":"\/news","parentLink":"news","recentNews":[{"ID":"1071","IDKat":"205","naslov":"Doc. dr. sc. 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