Zadar County to host Zlatna penkala 2027: leading international travel journalists are coming to Zadar
Zadar County will host the next Zlatna penkala award ceremony, a traditional project of the Croatian National Tourist Board that recognises international journalists, editors, travel bloggers and influencers for the best publications about Croatia as a tourist destination. According to an announcement by Zadar County dated September 7, 2026, awards for the best materials published in foreign markets during 2026 will be presented in Zadar in April 2027. On the occasion of the event, the county will host award-winning and nominated representatives of foreign media, as well as directors of Croatian National Tourist Board representative offices abroad. In addition to the ceremony itself, a study programme has also been announced through which guests will be introduced to different parts of the county, from Zadar and the Zadar archipelago to Biograd na Moru, Sveti Filip i Jakov and Pag. For the destination, this is an opportunity to present itself to international media beyond the classic image of a summer holiday, through cultural heritage, nature, gastronomy, islands, local communities and experiences that can provide a reason to visit outside the peak season as well.
Zlatna penkala rewards media stories created through direct experience of a destination
The Croatian National Tourist Board has been presenting Zlatna penkala since 2005, and the project is focused on professional media publications about Croatia produced for audiences in foreign markets. According to official CNTB data, the award covers various types of media content, as can also be seen from the structure of the 2026 ceremony: Grand Prix awards were presented for the best print-media publication, best online publication, television report, radio report or podcast, and content by a travel blogger or influencer. The CNTB also presents the project as a form of gratitude to foreign media professionals for continuously presenting Croatian destinations to international audiences. The name of the award is symbolically connected with Slavoljub Eduard Penkala, an inventor whose mechanical pencil and solid-ink fountain pen became recognisable products associated with writing and communication in the early 20th century.
The scale of the project is evident from the most recently held ceremony. At the 22nd Zlatna penkala, held on April 16, 2026 in Rijeka with the support of the Kvarner Tourist Board, 23 foreign media representatives from 14 countries participated, according to the Croatian National Tourist Board. The multi-day programme was not limited to the presentation of awards: participants toured cultural and historical landmarks and tourism attractions in Kvarner, giving the host an opportunity to connect the formal ceremony with direct experience of the destination. This model is particularly important for Zadar County in 2027 because the media impact of the event does not arise solely from the ceremony itself. A potentially much more lasting result is created when journalists and other authors discover topics during their stay for new articles, reports, programmes, podcasts, photographs and posts that are subsequently distributed in their markets.
Zadar has hosted Zlatna penkala before, and in 2027 it receives a new opportunity in front of international media
Hosting the event in 2027 will not be Zadar County's first encounter with Zlatna penkala. On April 6, 2019, the Croatian National Tourist Board organised the award ceremony in Petrčane in the Zadar area, while the three-day study programme at the time included Zadar, Starigrad-Paklenica, Ugljan, Kali, Nin and other locations. According to the official CNTB report, 24 journalists and media professionals from 16 countries participated in the programme, while the host partners were the Zadar County Tourist Board and the Zadar Tourist Board. The return of the event to the county after eight years also provides an opportunity to present its tourism offer in a new media environment, in which online publications, podcasts and social-media content now play an important role alongside traditional reports.
Vanja Čvrljak, director of the Zadar County Tourist Board, emphasised in the hosting announcement that the organisers want to introduce international guests to the area's cultural and historical heritage, natural assets, gastronomy, tradition and contemporary tourism offer. Čvrljak was appointed head of the county tourist board in late April 2026, and in July the Croatian National Tourist Board identified him as director of the Zadar County Tourist Board at a coordination meeting with local tourist boards. His announcement of Zlatna penkala therefore fits into the current promotional direction, which emphasises linking several local destinations and tourism products into a single county story. For international journalists, such an approach can be particularly important because it makes it possible to present, within a relatively limited area, a city, islands, coastal towns, protected nature, gastronomy and living cultural heritage.
The study trip will connect Zadar, Dugi Otok, Biograd, Sveti Filip i Jakov and Pag
According to the announcement by Zadar County, Zlatna penkala participants will visit Zadar, Dugi Otok, specifically Telašćica Nature Park, Biograd na Moru, Sveti Filip i Jakov and Pag during their stay. Such an itinerary gives the hosts an opportunity to present different types of destinations within a single programme: a historic urban centre, an island landscape, a protected natural area, coastal towns and a town with highly distinctive traditional heritage. Zadar also possesses internationally protected cultural value because its defensive system is one of six components of the UNESCO World Heritage property titled Venetian Works of Defence between the 16th and 17th Centuries: Stato da Terra – Western Stato da Mar. UNESCO inscribed the serial property on the World Heritage List in 2017.
Dugi Otok brings a completely different type of story to the programme. The Public Institution Telašćica Nature Park states that the park covers 70.5 square kilometres of land and sea in the southeastern part of Dugi Otok and the surrounding waters. Its most recognisable natural features include Telašćica Bay, the steep cliffs of the outer coast of Dugi Otok and the saltwater Lake Mir. In some places, the cliffs reach 161 metres above sea level, and the area is protected because of its valuable habitats, flora, fauna and geomorphological features. Such a location also opens up topics related to nature conservation, island life and sustainable visitation.
Pag, meanwhile, brings one of the area's most recognisable traditional stories. UNESCO lists Pag lace as one of three lacemaking traditions covered by the element "Lacemaking in Croatia", which was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. Pag lace is made using the needle-lace technique, and the knowledge of making it is passed down through generations. Combined with visits to Biograd na Moru and Sveti Filip i Jakov, the programme enables the presentation of the southern part of the county's coastline and the way smaller places are connected with larger regional tourism centres. Readers planning a longer stay in the region can also browse accommodation offers in Zadar and the surrounding area, especially if they want to combine city experiences with excursions to the islands and other parts of the county.
International media visibility can have an impact lasting beyond the event itself
The value of Zlatna penkala for the host is based on the fact that participants are not merely guests at a single ceremony, but professionals whose work is published in various international markets. In its announcement, Zadar County highlights that journalists and tourism communicators will become familiar with the destination through meetings with people, visits to attractions and local stories, after which those experiences can become content for their readers, viewers, listeners and followers. Hosting the event in itself does not guarantee a specific number of future publications or tourist arrivals, but it creates conditions for new reports and longer-term relationships with editors and authors who cover travel and tourism.
The history of the award to date shows that this effect is systematically built through a combination of recognition and study trips. The CNTB launched the project to highlight the value of professional reporting about Croatia. In 2026, Kvarner connected the programme with gastronomy, cultural heritage and local products. For 2027, Zadar County is announcing a broader geographical cross-section, from urban Zadar to islands and smaller coastal towns, so an important part of the programme will be precisely the ability to connect different locations into a coherent story. This can be particularly valuable for places that are less familiar to international audiences than Zadar but are located within the same tourism region.
The April event supports the idea of tourism outside the summer peak, but figures show how changeable the market can be
The April 2027 date has additional symbolism because the event will bring international media to Zadar County outside the main summer season. It is precisely during such a period that the destination can showcase cultural, gastronomic, natural and active experiences without relying on beach tourism as the main reason for travel. In their announcement, the organisers expect that hosting the event could contribute to extending the season and improving the geographical distribution of future visitors throughout the county. Such an effect, however, will depend on how relevant the stories produced during the study programme are to individual source markets, how the media present them, and whether the destination simultaneously has available transport connections, open attractions and an offer adapted to visitors outside the summer season.
The latest data published so far by the Croatian Bureau of Statistics further demonstrate why it is important to observe the season across several months rather than through a single result. In May 2026, Zadar County recorded 160,921 tourist arrivals and 579,339 overnight stays in commercial accommodation, which according to the CBS represented 5.1 percent more arrivals and 13.7 percent more overnight stays than in May 2025. In June, 286,014 arrivals and 1,418,110 overnight stays were recorded, but the overall results were lower than in the same month of the previous year, by 7.2 percent in arrivals and 5.7 percent in overnight stays. At the same time, domestic guests recorded growth in June, while a decline was recorded among foreign guests. According to its publication calendar, the CBS announced the release of official data for July 2026 for September 9, meaning that on September 8 they are not yet part of the official monthly release. Such fluctuations confirm that a promotional project alone cannot solve the issue of seasonality, but it can increase the visibility of experiences available outside the busiest summer weeks.
For Zadar County, the diversity of stories journalists take away from the trip will be crucial
The announced Zlatna penkala programme includes destinations that differ significantly from one another, and this is precisely one of the greatest promotional opportunities of hosting the event. Zadar can serve as the starting point for stories about the historic centre, architecture and contemporary city life; Telašćica for topics concerning protected nature and island landscapes; Pag for intangible heritage and tradition; and Biograd na Moru and Sveti Filip i Jakov for coastal tourism and the local way of life. If the programme includes meetings with local producers, guides, institutions and cultural actors, international authors will gain material for content that can differ from standard tourist lists of attractions.
For visitors who would like to connect several points from the announced programme, it is practical to plan a multi-day stay because the island and mainland locations do not form a single excursion area. Zadar has the role of the main urban centre and a natural starting point for part of the journey, while Dugi Otok and Pag are reached via separate routes. Information about accommodation for a stay in Zadar County can be useful to readers who want to combine the city, islands and coastal towns without returning to the same location every day. For the event itself, the detailed daily schedule, exact locations of individual activities and the final list of participants have not yet been officially published, so the full scope of the programme will be assessable once the organisers release additional information.
Hosting the event in April 2027 thus brings Zadar County another opportunity to present itself directly to a group of foreign media professionals working in travel and tourism. The official announcement confirms Zadar as the location of the award ceremony and a study trip through several parts of the county, while previous editions of Zlatna penkala demonstrate that a multi-day stay is an integral part of the event's concept. The actual media reach of the hosting will depend on the quality of the programme and the content that emerges from it, but the combination of a city, islands, protected nature and cultural heritage provides the hosts with a broad range of topics for international audiences. Following the previous Zadar hosting in 2019, the 2027 edition will also be an opportunity to show how the destination has changed and which stories it now wants to offer to the markets in which Croatian National Tourist Board representative offices operate.
Sources:
- Zadar County – official announcement of hosting Zlatna penkala in Zadar in April 2027 and the planned study trip (link)
- Croatian National Tourist Board – information about the Zlatna penkala project, the history of the award and the types of recognised media publications (link)
- Croatian National Tourist Board – report from the 22nd Zlatna penkala award ceremony in Rijeka on April 16, 2026 (link)
- Croatian National Tourist Board – document about Zlatna penkala 2019 in Zadar and the study programme in Zadar County (link)
- Croatian Bureau of Statistics – tourist arrivals and overnight stays in commercial accommodation in June 2026 (link)
- Croatian Bureau of Statistics – calendar for publication of monthly data on tourist arrivals and overnight stays (link)
- Croatian National Tourist Board – coordination meeting in Zadar County in July 2026 and confirmation of the current leadership of the county tourist board (link)
- Public Institution Telašćica Nature Park – official data on the area, natural features and protection of Telašćica (link)
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre – information on the Venetian Works of Defence and the component Defensive System of Zadar (link)
- UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage – information about lacemaking in Croatia and the tradition of Pag lace (link)