Sports-adventure park Fortica above Mostar with a unique glass walkway (skywalk), zip line, suspension bridge and other adrenaline content is seeing an increasing number of visitors, and in order to keep tourists as long as possible, they will soon offer a ‘tasting room’ where visitors to be able to try local products, but also to see how they are made.
“This year, and also in the tourist season, we are recording a large number of visitors, of course a larger number of foreign guests considering the number of tourists who come. Our diaspora is also coming, so we can say that there is roughly a half-half ratio of domestic and foreign guests. Definitely the number of visits has increased, and we can see this from the restaurant’s capacity, according to requests. Unfortunately, we did not have any exact data for previous years, and this year we installed a camera that records the number of visitors, so in these six months we recorded about 20 thousand visits and we are quite satisfied,” said Đani Rahimić, president of the Mountain Biking Association MTBA from Mostar, which is the initiator and operator of the picnic area at Fortica, in an interview with Fena news agency.
Tourists, he adds, are most enthusiastic about the view of Mostar.
“That is the main advantage of Fortica and people really may not have the opportunity in other cities to be so close on the heights above the city, that they feel as if Mostar is in the palm of their hand and that’s what I hear from them or what they comment on our social media networks that they were most fascinated,” he said.
In addition, some of them come for adrenaline activities such as zip-lining, but most are there for the view or are included in some other tourist arrangement with the agency.
“Unfortunately, most of the time they stay for a short time, and we try and try to extend their stay and provide them with some new activities, and that takes time, until it is learned a little, known and advertised,” said Rahimić.
He adds that last year, in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Tourism, they launched a project focused on arranging a smoking area that would be used for presentation purposes during the summer period, when the summer garden is in operation, to show tourists something about the traditional food and customs.
“We are located in a rural area, we have a large number of villages, and through various projects and activities we are trying to get them involved with their offers, with their products, so that they can then together create a tourist package, that is, a tourist product that would retain tourists,” he said. Rahimic.
This year they continued that project with the help of USAID, i.e. their project ‘Tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, where they jointly invested in the construction of a tasting room.
“So it will be a basement space, primarily for foreign guests, but also for ours, where they will be able to try local products, but also see how they are made, from honey, cheese from bellows, dried meat, brandy, local juices that are made here. So it will be a presentation-educational space for tasting. It is something innovative, and it complements our souvenir shop that we did last year, also with the help of USAID, where you can buy local handicrafts. domestic and food products, and now it’s all together as one whole, because people always like to try before they buy,” he emphasized.
He notes that they would like to include the residents of the surrounding villages in this project.
“We are trying to include our neighbors and give them the opportunity, in fact, for Fortica to be an entrance from the city and for tourists to visit the rural areas around it through Fortica. We hope that it will be operational already this season. Project with USAID has been approved, we are still waiting for the contract to be signed. The funds are being used to equip the space, the construction works are nearing completion, so it could start working very soon,” he said.
Recently, a music festival was held at Fortica, which attracted hundreds of partygoers from the entire region, and Rahimić says that they are very satisfied, even though they are not responsible for the event themselves, but it was the idea and implementation of the agency that organizes these events.
“We implemented that event together with our partners and we were only the host. We are satisfied in principle, there was a large attendance and it is another promotion for Fortica. We are happy when people are satisfied and enjoy this space and they will surely in there will be similar events in the future,” says Rahimić.
He adds that there is still great interest in adrenaline activities and that they are open to cooperation with anyone from the fields of tourism, entertainment, recreation and sports, and that they also support various projects.
“Zip-line is still popular, although there is usually a tendency for some activities to lose interest over time. It is still something that is sustainable and it is important to us that the entire complex is sustainable, that it can finance itself and that every can generate some surplus that we then invest in the further development of this space. We are a non-profit organization and that profit is invested every time, that’s why people say that there is always something new here,” concludes Rahimić, Fena writes.
Photo: Fena
