This Month: We speak to Miško Tomičić

                                                           Miško Tomičić (left)

Miško Tomičić is the founder of Essence of Croatia. He and his team have been collecting photos, videos and stories that capture the essence of Croatia.

Miško you are the founder of Essence of Croatia, can you tell us a bit about your background?
I am a 27 year old student of polytechnic in Pula. I study creative management in processes and I have only my final thesis left to defend. The project of „Essence of Croatia“ is the theme of my thesis and it has achieved great success, I am enjoying every moment of it. 2 years ago I went to Spain for an Erasmus internship and soon after it I got a job there. I am a business developement manager at „Spain Internship“ and my job is to find internships for students, but also to develop  our field of interest in Italy and other countries. This job includes a lot of marketing skills so it helped me a lot with my project and final thesis. I am also a passionate wrestler.

You seem to enjoy wrestling, can you tell us a bit more about that?

I am in the wrestling world for 9 years now and sport has become an irreplaceable part of my life. Sport connects people and makes your life easier and full of wealth. Through wrestling I have learned to be responsible and persistent, I made many „forever friendships“ and one very important fact, I have learned what fair play is. I have visited beautiful places and won many medals. Wrestling is something I can’t live without.

                                               Miško wins second prize!

Why did you start Essence of Croatia and what do you hope to achieve with it?

As I mentioned, „Essence of  Croatia“ is my final thesis theme. I got the idea while I was in Spain and feeling homesick. This made me feel that I am still at home. It has started like that, but soon it became a very important project for me. The whole team has learned a lot about Croatia, social media, marketing and many other things. We want to promote Croatia, the most popular parts of it but also smaller, unknown and almost invisible beauties of our country. There are many things about Croatia we want to show to the world, Croatian landscape, food, people, tradition. Hours and hours have been spent on this project, all of our work is on a voluntary basis and it will stay like this for some time. We still haven’t set our final goals but we hope that in the future we will sell our services and earn a living from our passion.

                                                                      Image taken by Edin Jusufagić

Who else is involved with Essence of Croatia?

The main team is small, but does a huge job. My girlfriend Leana helps me a lot so she is in charge of social media, proofreading of articles, administration and translation. Two young students from Croatia and Bulgaria are the main power behind new articles and videos. My job is online marketing, I have to make our web page visible in search engines. Other collaborators are a large number of photographers from all over Croatia, some of our frineds who have showed an interest for writing articles and tourist guides for different destinations, random people who want to share their experiences, photos and videos made in Croatia. There are also some people who want to participate in this project by giving away  their products and services (house for rest owners, young artists etc). I have to mention our families also, for giving us a huge support.

                                                   Image taken by Irena Trkulja

How do you assist people with their travels in Croatia?

We share beautiful photos and videos on our social media channels and on our website too. We also write many articles where you can read a lot about Croatia in a fun way. There are tourist guides for main destinations on our website so everyone can read about history, city sights, transport, accommodation and must-do things. We also help everyone who contacts us with plenty of certified information for each question. We are happy to be at your service!

What are your next plans?

We are planning to translate the webpage in other languages as well (Italian, Spanish, German). At the moment we are translating the webpage to Croatian. After translating the website we would like to add more city guides and cover the area of all Croatia, it is extremely hard to find someone from the exact city to write an article. We want certified information. As well we would like to settle up collaboration with local people so they can be guides for travellers. Imagine a person who could show you the city and the whole of its secrets. Our work is to discover tourist destinations but as well hidden spots to a regular traveller.

                                                                      Image taken by Edin Jusufagić

Why do you enjoy working on Essence of Croatia?

After spending almost two years in Spain far away from my home, I love to travel around Croatia and write blogs, making photos. The best thing is when I arrive to a small town and meet some inhabitants. Their experiences are amazing, the stories they can tell you won’t find in a book. National habits around Croatia are so different. Our dream is to induce the essential feelings and tastes, create delicious moments of joy, make you want to travel and visit Croatia.

To conclude please let us know why someone should visit Croatia.

Croatia is a small country with many things to see and many interesting facts. We have eight national parks and I still cannot decide which is the best. Plitvice lakes, Brijuni islands, National park Krka, National park Mljet are a must visit. Historical and archeological monuments are stunning, for example collosseum in city of Pula is more than 3000 years old. The White house has been built of stone from the island of Brač. And this certainly isn’t everything!

I invite people from all around the world to visit Croatia not only in the summer period but as well in spring and autumn because it is not so crowded and hot. Contact us with any question and we’ll send you genuinely interesting information about Croatia.

                                                                      Image taken by Sanja Srdic