Meet Tihana Bazdar Gasljevic from Maistra Hospitality Group
Tihana Bazdar Gasljevic, Head of Brand Management , Maistra Hospitality Group, Croatia
How would you describe your first reaction/feelings/thoughts to the word brand?
The brand is first, an emotion. My first reaction to the word “brand” is exactly that – total emotion. A brand does feature physical and emotional benefits, brand DNA and various extensions, updates, and upgrades, but primarily, the brand is how you feel about a certain service or product. You could have a mediocre quality of a product, but if a customer feels connected to it, on some level that is important to her/him, they will be loyal to the brand, because it triggers the emotional part of the process. And vice versa, the top quality product must have an emotional tie to the customer, and then it becomes a brand. Naturally, the ideal situation is to have the top quality product that triggers the very core of the customer’s emotions and this relationship grows constantly.
What is your goal in hospitality marketing?
To create, implement and keep having a famous hospitality brand for generations. It means constant contact with the market and continuous fine-tuning.
Give three essential items you cannot live without when you travel and why!
Charger for mobile and laptop, wifi, and lots of coffee (for obvious reasons) are my top essentials. :)
At Best Stay 2022 Tihana will share the stage with her colleague Ivan Gregorovic, General Manager of the brand new hotel. In their joint presentation, they’ll share Maistra’s case and the brand story about the new city hotel opening in Croatia.
Maistra operates as part of Adris Group and is one of the leading tourist companies in Croatia. It manages 18 hotels, 11 tourist villages and 6 campsites in internationally sought-after destinations – Rovinj, Vrsar, Zagreb, and Dubrovnik.