Croatia travel expert Andro Tartaglia, provider of active vacations and bicycle trips in Dalmatia- Episode 6

Joost Schreve:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the sixth episode of the kimkim podcast. My name is Joost Schreve, and I'm co-founder and CEO of kimkim. Today, I have Andro Tartaglia on the show. Andro is based in Split in Croatia, and is founder and managing director of Meridien Ten, a local travel company specialized in bike tours and other adventurous experiences. Welcome to the podcast, Andro. It's great to have you.

Andro Tartaglia:

Hello, and thank you, Joost. Hello.

Joost Schreve:

How are things over there? How's the weather?

Andro Tartaglia:

Our weather is good today, finally. I think summer started. We had some rain in May, we had some really unusual weather, but I think it's now, it's all fine, and we will have good summer.

Joost Schreve:

That's great.

Andro Tartaglia:

Yeah.

Joost Schreve:

Yeah, and it's a real Mediterranean climate there, is that right?

Andro Tartaglia:

It is, so we have usually nice breeze during the day, in the evenings as well, which helps us survive the warm Mediterranean weather.

Joost Schreve:

Right. Yeah, and it stays quite warm at night as well, right?

Andro Tartaglia:

It stays warm at night, yeah definitely. There is a kind of nice northeasterly breeze every night which helps to sleep. Sometimes you don't need air condition.

Joost Schreve:

Nice.

Andro Tartaglia:

All the old towns on our coast, they were all built in Roman, Greek times. All the streets were built so they can accept this breeze so it cools down a bit in the evenings.

Joost Schreve:

Nice, that's great. Let's talk a little bit about how you got into travel. I think you started playing tennis as a kid, is that right?

Andro Tartaglia:

Yes, I was playing tennis professionally 4 hours a day every day, training, competing till I was 17. I don't know, something happened. I hit the wall or I came to the crossroad as I like to say. It was 2 decisions, one was to see tennis courts all of my life and the other one was to discover the world. I stopped with tennis and I somehow ended up in Zagreb which is our capitol of Croatia. I went to study economics there. From Zagreb, somehow I ended up in Austria where I started to work in the wintertime as a ski instructor.

Joost Schreve:

What ski area did you work at?

Andro Tartaglia:

In the Kitzbuhel area in Tirol, Austria.

Joost Schreve:

It's pretty famous right?

Andro Tartaglia:

Yeah.

Joost Schreve:

For the big downhill race?

Andro Tartaglia:

The downhill ski race, yeah. In the summertime I was here on our coast, I was keeper on a sailing boat. I had really nice student life. Maybe when I was 25 first accident, big accident happened. I ruptured my ACL cruciate ligament. Then I had the surgery and I was unable to use my legs as I was used to use them. This was the time when I was stuck in the office let's say. I think I cannot accept it but I did. This was the time when I started to think about traditional tourism and active tourism, the difference. Not really active, but small groups to travel and providing the local experiences. I could see the difference with big bus tours. This is all what was happening which I was seeing in my head during this time when I was injured. For the first time I was actually on the beach looking at families who are just doing nothing.

Joost Schreve:

What year was this approximately?

Andro Tartaglia:

Maybe 2000 or something.

Joost Schreve:

It was very early for tourism also in Croatia. I think there wasn't that much travel going on yet, is that right?

Andro Tartaglia:

There was travel but this was early for ... the biggest time for tourism was just before our war while we were there in '89. This was the type of tourism where you have big bus tours, 50 guests on a bus traveling around, having one guy doing the city tours. City tour of Zagreb, of Split, of Dubrovnik ... accommodation like apartment rentals. Families would rent the accommodation for 1 week and that's it, they would just stay in this apartment. I saw all of this and the way I travel, I want to see the real thing. In the same time I said, "I will try to provide tourists which have the same thing." For the guests who come on our tours so they can experience the real Croatia.

Joost Schreve:

It makes sense, looks at your personal experience and how you would like to travel and translated that into a product for other travelers, right?

Andro Tartaglia:

Exactly.

Joost Schreve:

Maybe tell us a little bit about how your company got started and where you are today. What's the size of the company? What things are you specializing in, etc.?

Andro Tartaglia:

The company started in '89. It was founded by my parents. At that time they were providing inbound and outbound travel services. We were working a lot with the traveling market, we were working a lot with English market providing accommodation, transfers, excursions. We were organizing ski holidays for Croatians in Austria, in Italy, in France. This is how I got into skiing as well. With this accident which happened actually I got stuck in the office. This is when I started to think, I said let's try to offer something else, something different. This was the start of Meridien Ten active travel department.

Since I arrived until now the whole structure of the company changed. Before that we had 16 people employed mostly working behind the computer, now we are 8. We are quite small. We have 5 people in the office and we have 3 guides who are working with us all year long. We are trying to provide personal services so every client is important to us. We usually don't organize big bus tours anymore. We are trying to limit our groups to maximum 16 or 18 so we can show the real thing. If we have 30 people they won't get the chance to experience something nice.

Joost Schreve:

When I look at your website at MeridienTen.com I see a lot of biking that you promote?

Andro Tartaglia:

Biking is maybe 80% of our business or maybe even more. We combine, with biking you can combine many different things like cultural sightseeings. You know, people are biking ... this is the main transportation but when you're biking you really see. You see the old villages, you smell the flowers, you smell the lavender, you see the local people. You are out there, you feel it. Then you get hungry because you are biking so we are trying always to include local food, local wines typical to the area. Biking does bring other kinds of travel, gastronomy, culture, different sorts of services.

Joost Schreve:

That sounds fantastic. I see for example one of the bike tours is the Dalmatian Coast classic from Split to Dubrovnik.

Andro Tartaglia:

This would be our bestseller. It's a long story. When I was designing this trip there was in my head what was going on. There was a fight either to provide a lower quality and cheaper tour or better quality and definitely with more logistics you have more expensive tour. At the end I said, "Let's go with a better product." Split to Dubrovnik and the islands in between. Island Brac, Island Hvar, you have Island Korkula and Peljesac Peninsula, these are most beautiful areas of Dalmatian Coast.

Joost Schreve:

Maybe tell us a bit about how it works. You bike during morning I guess and stop for lunch and you take ferries as well to get to the islands?

Andro Tartaglia:

We combine ferries and private boat transportation between the islands. We overnight in hotels. There are usually two guides. One is always on a bike with the group and the other one is in the van so we have support in case someone needs some water or some fruit. There is always fruit or snacks in the van. Also if there is a bigger climb then we can easily put the bike in the van and transfer these people to the top of the climb. There is support. We include most of the lunches, we include most of the dinners. They are not lunches in a hotel. We go to nice local restaurants so our guests get a chance to experience something local.

Joost Schreve:

That sounds really great. I guess you bike a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon?

Andro Tartaglia:

Normally the distances are between 30 and 50 kilometers. We will bike for maybe 2 1/2, 3 hours before lunch. We stop for lunch and then we have another maybe 10 or 15 kilometer ride to our hotel. We try to provide some downtime for the guests before dinner together.

Joost Schreve:

That sounds very exciting. I'd love to be on a tour like that actually. 10 years ago I was in Croatia and I biked a little bit on the island of Vis. It was pretty amazing. There's actually even a photo on kimkim of me and my wife with the view there. I'll send you the link and I'll post it to the podcast here as well. It was a really great experience. I would love to go back.

Andro Tartaglia:

Island Vis is one of my favorite islands. When we do custom trips we always try to include it. For our regular tour the Dalmatian Coast classic it's only 6 days long and 5 nights. It's a bit out of the reach. Definitely for anyone who is interested in Croatia I would suggest Island Vis because it's a beautiful place as you said.

Joost Schreve:

Great, do you do other activities as well? This is really along the coast I think, but then there must be other routes you do as well, right?

Andro Tartaglia:

We provide trips through the whole Croatia. We include parts of Bosnia. Bosnia is a really interesting country. You have most of our town where East meets West, you have Catholics and Muslims who are part of the same town. There is only one river dividing, so real interesting. Lots of historical things that were there. Then we do short trips to Montenegro, we do short trips to Slovenia. We have some tours which start in Zagreb and then go down along Plitvice National Park. This is one of really beautiful sites to visit in Croatia. The third part of Croatia is Istrian Peninsula which is close to Venice, close to Italy. Beautiful area to visit as well.

Joost Schreve:

Sounds really great. Where do people come from typically who do your tours? Is it from all over the world or is there a specific country that sends more travelers?

Andro Tartaglia:

It is all over the world but since our trips are ... like what we were speaking before about the tours from Split to Dubrovnik, along the Dalmatian Coast. Mostly these will be visitors who will come only once to Croatia. They want to see it all. They want to see the highlights of Croatia. I would say USA, Canada, Brazil, Chile, Australia, England, this would be the biggest amount of our guests are coming from these countries.

Joost Schreve:

Okay, so even less Europe I guess?

Andro Tartaglia:

Yeah.

Joost Schreve:

Okay, wow. How do those people find you typically?

Andro Tartaglia:

Online, just online.

Joost Schreve:

Is it your website or other sources where they find you like social media?

Andro Tartaglia:

Yeah, website, social media, recommendations, word of mouth. This is actually still the biggest way how people find us, recommendations.

Joost Schreve:

Right, because people come back and they talk about their experience and others want to do the same thing. That's great. Lastly, where do you see tourism in Croatia going? Also, where do you see your company go? Do you have a vision for where you will be several years from now?

Andro Tartaglia:

This is really nice and really hard question. If I can tell you honestly I'm pessimist. I believe we Croatians will ruin this country because we will overbuild it. Same what happened to Spain, big ugly hotels, big ugly apartments, lots of restaurants. Unfortunate, but I'm pessimist. Then on the other side what we are doing, we are trying to fight against this so it's small which gives a little bit of impact to local citizens. We are trying to protect locals. We provide trips to rural areas where our guests will experience the real deal. They will see something real. In this way we are trying to protect Croatia, trying to bring tourism in rural areas. All of our guides share the same vision. We are passionate about Croatia and when you have guests who like this and who like to travel and experience the real thing it does not feel like work. We can all give much more. When people appreciate the local knowledge for us it's not a problem to provide it.

Joost Schreve:

Right.

Andro Tartaglia:

By just offering small groups ... what's active? It's hard to say. Active does not have to be 45 or 60 kilometer bike ride or 30 kilometer hike. Active is just that you don't spend the day in your hotel or behind in the bus sitting all day and going for lunch or winery. You want to go out there in the nature or in rural areas and see some real stuff. That's our vision. In a way we are trying to fight against mass tourism and overbuilding. That's it.

Joost Schreve:

I think that's a trend everywhere where the country becomes more popular of course there's always this downside effect.

Andro Tartaglia:

Exactly.

Joost Schreve:

Luckily I guess awareness that we all need to make sure that we protect ourselves and the country from overbuilding. It's always maybe a bit of an uphill battle to keep it authentic and local. It's great to hear that you're doing your part there.

Andro Tartaglia:

We are doing our best.

Joost Schreve:

That's great. Thanks Andro, I think this was really very helpful. Are there any other things you would like to highlight? Any experiences that you think people should consider?

Andro Tartaglia:

I don't know. I think we covered it all, maybe the best time to visit Croatia. If guests are interested in swimming it would be June and then September and October is still good month for swimming. If you want to avoid the crowds and if you are not too much into swimming April, May, October. If you want to avoid the crowds and swim as I said before May, September. July and August are really busy. I know this is the time of when Europeans have holiday. Actually there are holidays all over but the busiest time in Croatia is July and August. It's very hard, these experiences which we are talking about it's hard to get them. It's full.

Joost Schreve:

The biking tours you can do year round pretty much? In the spring I guess?

Andro Tartaglia:

You can do them year round, we all bike here all year long. To be safe it would be April, May, June, September, October and November as well.

Joost Schreve:

Makes sense. Great, well thanks very much Andro. It was really great to have you on our podcast. We will do our best to send many people your way who are interested in local, authentic experiences and not in mass tourism. We try to do our part as well there.

Andro Tartaglia:

Thank you.

Joost Schreve:

Great, thanks very much Andro. It's nice to talk to you.

Andro Tartaglia:

Nice to talk to you. Bye.

Joost Schreve:

Bye.

Andro Tartaglia:

Bye.