Hotel manager, Danilo Uzelac, and marketing director, Branimir Cigale, talk about new strategy and development plans for congress hotel Galleria.

1. Within the past year and a half congress hotel Galleria has done much to upgrade its business. Could you tell us something about the changes and the new strategy and how they have contributed to enhancing the hotel’s image?

I have to agree with you, the hotel’s image really has undergone considerable positive changes and congress hotel Galleria now boasts a solid reputation among similar congress venues not only in Serbia, but also in the region. Since the hotel is located in Subotica, the northernmost city in the country, our main asset in terms of competition is the geographic attractiveness of this area and the added advantage of the peace and quiet provided by Lake Palić situated in Subotica municipality. Our trademark is therefore coupled with images of beautiful plains, peace, relaxation, characteristic culinary specialties, quiet, leisure, good, hospitable people, the salaš, the sound of horse hooves and the tambura, and so many other images typical for Vojvodina. Among the things that have certainly contributed to promoting our positive image has been the construction of new facilities; the hotel has improved its offer by introducing a number of new facilities that were built and presented through various communication channels to our target groups. – Danilo Uzelac, hotel manager.

1. You have also added various new amenities in your offer. What are some of the new amenities your guests will be able to enjoy?

The most important among the new contents is the new Galleria Wellness Center covering approximately 1,600 sq m. Our Wellness Center is another attractive feature of the general offer we have just described and it is a perfect complement to peace, quiet, and a relaxed atmosphere which are all familiar traits of Subotica and its touristic jewel – Lake Palić. The Wellness Center offers excellent saunas, Turkish baths, massage and body treatment programs, Kneipp hydrotherapy, a salt room, health capsules, hydro-massage baths, and many other features that ensure relaxation and stress relief and time well-spent on one’s own wellbeing.

In addition to the Wellness Center, we have also opened an authentic restaurant “The Bavarian Beerhouse – Munich” with Bavarian specialties and original German beers, with a focus on the Bavaria region.

With all these amenities congress hotel Galleria can safely say that it has a lot to offer to a wide target group – from meeting industry participants to those looking for wellness treatments and weekend leisure arrangements. – Danilo Uzelac, hotel manager.

2. What do you do to attract meetings to Hotel Galleria and to Subotica considering other competitive destinations in Serbia and the region?

In the 21^st century, when reservations are made directly or indirectly over the Internet (with a growing tendency toward mobile device bookings), Hotel Galleria is keeping step with hotels around the world. Today we can offer our guests the finest quality printed materials and we can appear on TV at prime time to promote our offer but each of viewers will sure visit our website so they can get the details of our offer and compare us to others offering similar services. As a result, internet marketing is not a matter of choosing whether you want to do it or not, it’s a matter of deciding how well you are going to do it. That’s how we make sure Hotel Galleria is taken into consideration when plans are made for important regional business conferences regardless whether the reason is incentive travel or a multinational company’s regional sales conference. So, our arena is the Internet (for the B2C and B2B business segment) and, certainly, direct sales, which is vital for building feasible and profitable B2B relations. As for competition in terms of geographic location, this is mostly done by tourist organizations in cooperation with individual representatives of the tourist industry. We are happy to say that we have excellent cooperation with the tourist organization of Subotica and that we do a lot ourselves to promote the potential of Subotica and Palić as integral parts of our offer and packages. – Branimir Cigale, marketing director.