A Plea for Balkan Tourism Unity

Perception and reality are ever-moving targets in the world of tourism. We are always hearing that journalists distort the truth about destinations from people in the tourism industry and we all know that the brochures and post cards that our industry is famous for distort reality also. It’s probably true to say that both the worst news reports and the sunniest travel reports are both true about a given place depending on what time you get there and who you meet. Still, some places are unfairly stigmatized by news accounts and the Balkans are definitely one of them.

No region is more victimized by clashing perceptions and realities than the Balkans. The very word “Balkan” carries more in the way of connotation than description. When we read the word Balkan we expect it to be followed by “crisis” or “conflict.” “Balkanization” has come to mean the breaking up of a political unity. Last year as Scotland made its historic vote, writers worried about “the Balkanization of Great Britain.”

So thick is the historic smoke and sulfur that hangs over the word that we need to be reminded that it actually refers to either the Balkan Mountains or the Balkan Peninsula. The Balkan countries include all of the countries of the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia) plus Albania and Bulgaria. That’s the geographical definition, though sometimes you’ll see Romania, Greece and even Turkey combined in Balkan programs.

From a traveler’s point of view the Balkans are a scenic chain of mountains characterized by deep secluded valleys where towns and villages could carve really individual cultures and histories because of their remoteness from each other. A place where cultures evolved separately as small kingdoms, duchies and counties caught between the larger forces of Ottoman Turkey and Austro Hungarian Europe. The diversity of these places in culture, religion and ethnic divides may wreak havoc on political allegiances, but somehow they unify the region under a unique ethos.

While the wars of the 1990s are still fresh in most of our memories, deep Balkan history has a tendency to blend into Balkan myth. There are myths believed within the Balkans, and myths believed by outsiders about the Balkans. It’s the latter myths that mostly inhibit travelers. In his comprehensive geo-history of the Region, The Balkans, Misha Glenny cites Tony Blair’s 1998 observation that “Kosovo is on the doorstep of Europe.” If, Glenny wonders, the Balkans are only on the doorstep and not in Europe, then where are they? They’re certainly not in Asia.

Glenny concludes that Blair, like most outsiders, sees the Balkans more as a mythic land of tribal feudalism, blood feuds and banditry. The Balkans that Blair referred to, Glenny points out, were the Balkans described by Bram Stoker in his novel, Dracula. We still see the region from the myths perpetuated in old horror films where terrified villagers are always running about at night with pitch forks and torches as lightning strikes the count’s evil castle perched on an evil hill.

History hasn’t done a much better job than myth, as historians love to characterize the region as an Orwellian bumper zone between empires; a blank battlefield for Czars and commissars to challenge sultans and warlords.

Maybe it’s time for the region to speak for itself. A Balkan Tourism Organization would provide just the platform for the region’s nonpolitical powers to begin defining the region for travelers. In a recent interview, I broached the idea with the Croatian National Tourism Board’s Director, Ratomir Ivicic. “We do support the idea that tourism is a great platform to bridge the cultural and customs differences,” he said. “It’s a platform for wider collaboration. An association would be very good for all of us.”

Croatia is riding an incredible streak of popularity with tourists right now. It’s way out in front of its Balkan neighbors when it comes to attracting Americans as last year the country reached a staggering 18 percent growth in arrivals out of this market (266,618 total visits). The numbers would grow even larger if Americans saw it as a gateway to the region as multi-country travel always excels in what are new destinations to Americans.

It’s just beginning to happen. Five star marina and resort development in Montenegro is stretching the tourism that flocks to the Dalmatian Coast southward so that operators in Dubrovnik are now selling packages that explore Montenegro by sea and land. Likewise within Croatia, American travelers are beginning to travel inland as such interior attractions as Zagreb and the Plitvice Lakes are growing more prominent among the country’s top attractions.

The entire region is very strong in soft adventure. Last spring, the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) ran a webinar on the Western Balkans including Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. National Geographic created a supplement at www.balkansgeotourism.travel that covers Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

Product is also beginning to follow suit. On top of a growing number of tour operators that package the region, Rail Europe now offers a Balkan Flexipass which includes unlimited travel on the national rail networks in Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Turkey. The pass comes in five, 10-, or 15-day versions of unlimited train travel in a one-month period.

The Balkans could really use a regional marketing organization. It would help promote the area on its own terms; protect the area from the pitfalls of tourism; create a greater branding and stimulate connections between travel businesses that have synchronistic goals and needs. Right now is an era of peace in the Balkans; it’s the perfect time for tourism stakeholders to begin crossing borders in a friendlier spirit than the region’s political leaders have ever been able to.