Five local tourist boards of the island of Hvar have joined forces to create infrastructure of 13 bicycle paths in the total length of 470 kilometres in order to further develop cycling tourism. The project was presented on Friday in the town of Hvar, reports Slobodna Dalmacija on April 9, 2016.
The presentation of the tourist brochures, maps, bike paths and accompanying website was attended by Joško Stella, director of the County Tourist Board; Denis Špadina, president of the County Cycling Federation; Rino Budrović, Mayor of Hvar and president of the Hvar Tourist Board; and representatives of other tourist boards, agencies and family farms on the island.
Joško Stella said that their goal was to extend the tourist season, improve its quality, attract more tourists who recreationally ride bikes and present the island as a unique destination. “I think that Hvar is ready for pre-season and post-season events and cyclotourist races which the County Tourist Board is ready to support financially. I would also urge you to think about connecting your family farms and other facilities in this project, since in that way we can create tours that would join cycling and gastronomy”, explained Stella, who pointed out as a positive example two stages of Tour of Croatia bicycling race which will go through the entire county on 20 and 21 April.
Denis Špadina said that great progress had been made, since in 2014 there was not a single marked cycling trail in the whole county. “Today, we have 69 trails with the total length of 2,250 kilometres, seven official races and fifty certified cycling facilities, which is already bringing in revenue of some two million kuna a year. The cycling map of Hvar is the second after the map of Inland Dalmatia, and soon we will publish maps for Brač and the Biokovo Nature Park”, added Špadina.
The accompanying website dalmatia-bike.com should soon get its multilingual version, but for now it displays 12 cycling trails on Hvar with technical descriptions and details, as well as information regarding local accommodation and other tourist facilities.
However, one of the major obstacles for the development of cycling tourism is certainly the issue of transportation of bicycles to islands. Catamarans still do not have adequate facilities for bicycles, and the price for transport of bicycles on a ferry is more expensive than the price for a person. Stella said they were actively working on solving this problem with Jadrolinija.
