Istra Inspirit is a multi-awarded tourism project in Istria that enriches the cultural and tourist offer of the peninsula with the revival of historical events on authentic locations, through staged Istrian legends and myths. The Administrative Department for Tourism of the Region of Istria has promoted the development of the Istra Inspirit project since 2012 in cooperation with the Istrian Tourism Development Agency, IRTA and Istria Tourist Board.
Istra Inspirit is an example of best practice of creative and innovative tourism and underlines the value of existing unused resources of cultural and historical heritage of the region and finds innovative ways of involving different stakeholders in the tourism industry in order to create tourist packages and new tourism products. Quality, originality, innovation and sustainability are the main characteristics that make this project distinctive and its ‘know-how’ recognizable, the aim of which is to be transferred to the stakeholders and create with them the story of the destination. Furthermore, the goal is to achieve the active networking of all the interested publics in the synergy of the creation of tourism destinations – family farm households, students, local communities, actors, artists and musicians, craftsmen and local tourist boards.
The 100th session of the UNWTO Executive Council was held in Rovinj in May 2015 for whose members Istra Inspirit had the opportunity to perform its experiences; after that Istra Inspirit was listed in the hundred best tourism stories in the world in the renowned publication issued by the World Tourism Organization.
Istra Inspirit was invited by the Scottish International Storytelling Festival to present Istria and Croatia at the festival ‘Open word, open world’ held in Edinburgh in October, 2017.
Istra Inspirit has been recognized as an innovative, creative and promising project and has been awarded many distinguished rewards. As an important cultural tourism product it has been awarded with prestigious awards:
- CBTour – the award for the best creative program of Croatian business tourism in 2012;
- MRAK (Network for Development and Creativity) – an award for the most creative and innovative tourism product in 2012;
- Simply the Best – award from the UHPA and magazine Way to Croatia for a creative and innovative approach to creating tourism offers in 2012;
- Golden Goat 2012 / Capra d’oro 2012 – for the best innovative product in Istrian Region;
- Golden Zoom Awards – Best Marketing Campaign for tourist destination in 2013;
- „XVIII ediciónConcurso al mejorproducto de turismo”, FITUR, Madrid – nomination for the best international tourist product;
- Creative Tourism Awards – the most creative event in 2014. – awarded by Creative Tourism Network in 2015;
- ‘European Cultural Tourism Network’ – Contributions by Cultural and Creative Industry Category 3rd prize, registration with Reviving cultural and historic heritage of Istria through cultural tourism;
- Conventa Best Event Award 2019 – finalists of the international B2C competition held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2019.
Presentation about Istra Inspirit can be downloaded here:
Performers
Creating a culturall experience tourist product for innovation’s sake is the main driver of the Istra Inspirit project. In order to maximize the value of Istria as cultural tourism destination and resources of cultural-historical and traditional heritage due to its valorization and promotion, from the very beginning of the project it was necessary to provide top quality artist performers with multiple skills, talents and abilities such as acting, music, dancing, juggling, walking on sticks, fire – eating, silk dance so that the audience can enjoy a complete interactive experience in the living history concept.
The challenge of a new cultural tourism product, which characteristic was to take place in authentic locations throughout Istria, was also to include the audience itself in a performance that requires both the performers and all involved to have additional ability to improvise and adapt to each experience in a different way. Over 600 performances in seven years since the project exists in which there were tens of thousands visitors involved, say enough about how the project succeeded in it. Stories, myths and legends were transferred in a professional way in the form of creative interpretation of cultural heritage.
The trust to create the majority of experiences under the brand of Istra Inspirit is given to the well-known Actress and Director from Pula, Petra B. Blašković, who directed many of Istra Inspirit experiences and acted in the same. In addition to Petra, the art performers team consisted of outstanding individuals in the last six years of the project, including actors, musicians and other performers: Frano Novljan, Denis Brižić, Nikolina Baškarad, Antonio Jakupčević, Dominik Karakašić, Nenad Pavlović, Elena Orlić, Vanja Jovanović, Ivan Pokupac, Šandor Slacki, Sedina Cerovac, Miroslav Cerovac, Kristijan Dellabernardina, Nataša Dragun, Samanta Stell, Sebastian Stell, Anka Kovac Augustiny, Sandro Perocevic, Bika Blasko, Ognjen Jovanovic, Zoja Poropat, Jasna Todorović, Petar Dugandžić, Daniel Novoselac, Dejan Gotal, Ivona Bulešić, Martina Božić, Samantha Kelemen, Linda Kliman, Mia Mandinić, Samuel Augustiny and many others.
Associations involved in the project and whose contribution to the project is priceless: Association Friends of Giostra, House of Batana, Labin Art Express, Pretoria, MVS Nešpula, Historical Association Castle.
