Croatian PR Pros Meet

I found the Croatian public relations people I have met at this conference at Rovinj, Croatia, to be sharp. It’s the annual meeting of the Croatian PR Association, and I spoke before the group Friday on the trends and ethics of working in a New Media. I heard many questions over issues of blogs and ethics. Good questions, important issues. For example, is it ethical to mask or hide the person responsible for a blog that covers controversy. Not in my book. I am a proponent of openness and transparency.

There’s quite a bit happening in this country on the Adriatic — from technology to energy and telecommunications — and companies and organizations have come to reply on PR for competitive positioning. But, here are a couple of issues I have observed –

Croatia has a fabulous coastline on the Adriatic sea but the country’s tourism people promote Croatia as, “The Mediterranean As It Once Was.” That is an absolutely untrue and misleading statement because not one inch of Croatian coastline is on the Mediterranean but rather at the northern reaches of the Adriatic Sea, far from the Mediterranean.

Companies and organizations from many nations, including the United States, are knocking on Croatia’s door but the second most-often-asked question I received at the conference was how the country can maintain its “regional” image. It cannot, not in this globalization era.

While Croatia’s government remains fairly closed, I think they needs to be thinking about global positioning of this country that has so much to offer.

I like the conference’s slogan -

If I was (sic) down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on PR.