My Dubrovnik Trip and Research on Consumer Behaviour

Following from the previous blog, this post will express the consumer behaviour within the Croatian, Dubrovnik environment. Leisure activity elements such as; drinking coffee, visiting restaurants, involvement of wine tasting and also taking part of a cable car leisure activity, will be the main points to this blog. It will be explained how the leisure activity of eating and drinking, is consumed by the residents of Dubrovnik and how their behaviour is influenced by their surroundings.

Research shows that when a tourist choses a trip and specific services to get involved in, a change in their behaviour will show. Through the adventures which they choice, they admire to get an emotional satisfaction by using services which will meet their expectations. (Mihajlović and Koncul, 2016) 

First Day - Coffee

As it has already been made aware, I attended a five day trip with my university peers to the Croatian city of Dubrovnik.

The first day while exploring the city of Dubrovnik, I realised how extraordinary and outstanding the coffee was. The unique taste which each latte, cappuccino and macchiato gave to my taste buds, easily persuaded me to put Dubrovnik coffee at the top of my top 5 list. Regular size coffee prices range from 8-10 Kuna’s each, which is equivalent to 91p - £1.37 (Living, 2017) Environmental factors such as currency, influences consumers in Dubrovnik when deciding where to drink coffee. Within the later decades of the 17^th century the warm beverage became very popular in Dubrovnik and towards the end of the century shops became devoted to coffee even more. (Payne, 2014)

By converting the prices of coffee from the currency Kuna to the British pound, shown me exactly why the Dubrovnik community is so happy when drinking coffee. Both quality and quantity play a huge part when ordering coffee, which tops off the reason for me to buy a Dubrovnik coffee even more.

While me and my peers were exploring the stores of Dubrovnik I would often see different brands of coffee, one standing out to me the most called Dr, Oz Green Coffee Extract. (A capsule consumption type of coffee) Upon further research, many external factors have been found which influence consumers to purchase green products. In Dubrovnik, a green product of coffee called Dr, Oz Green Coffee Extract is known to be a much healthier way of consuming coffee. (Ladyspleen.com, 2017)

Studies show although consumers understand the importance of environmental issues, their environmental attitudes do encourage their need to not purchase green products. (Joshi, Y. and Rahman, Z, 2015) Citizens of Dubrovnik are also influenced not to purchase the healthier side of coffee by situational factors. Rokka and Uusitalo (2008) states that a situational factor can override the thought of a consumer purchasing a green product due to their attitude at any moment. This could be narrowed down to an example such as; entering a department store for the specific product, however the marketing layout of the store has been designed to influence the consumer to wander the store and purchase more then they originally planned to, eventually forgetting the main product which they initially wanted. (Open.lib.umn.edu, 2017)

Coffee is a popular beverage in Dubrovnik (Payne, 2014) having a macchiato as a main part of breakfast daily, coffee lunch breaks and friendship meet ups, has influenced restaurants and coffee shops to provide consumer discounts and has inspired their way into majority of restaurants and stores. Exploring this research, myself and everybody else thought the coffee was the greatest coffee we have ever tasted.

Ajmo na kavu, this means let’s go for coffee. The phrase is used majority of the time when inviting friends and family to socialise. It is known that the Croatia café culture connects people all over Croatia. The sociological factor of lifestyle and buying habits influences the connection of Croatians, to purchase coffee regularly when taking part in leisure activities such as shopping. (Pisac, 2017)

Second Day – Restaurants

The second day was made up of a two-hour walking tour of the Old Town which was supposed to be followed by a trip on a cable car to the top of Mount Srdj, however unfortunately the cable cars had a malfunction as we arrived. Instead we explored the area for a restaurant which attracted our eye. We found a perfect little pizza restaurant, called Olivia Pizzeria.

Spending time at the restaurant and observing the customers which walked in and purchased food, shown me that the sociological factor of lifestyle was the reason why the specific consumers chose this restaurant. The area is known to hold a family orientated environment, which influences the community to spend a lot of time together with their family members. (Thorpe, 2017) The restaurant had many small families at tables which seemed very warming and inviting. This is what attracted us to have our meal at this restaurant.

Searching for restaurants for me to eat at in Dubrovnik was difficult, as I am a fussy eater and I also don’t eat pork, so I would walk into at least five restaurants before I found one that I was happy with. Fussy? Yes, I know. One type of cuisine which I absolutely love is Italian food, shockingly searching for restaurants made me realise how many Italian style menus, Dubrovnik were offering to their customers. I have been to Italy previously and personally Dubrovnik Italian restaurants were a lot more tasteful. I noticed that Dubrovnik tend to serve one single olive with every pizza which they sell.

Researching prices of restaurants throughout Dubrovnik shows that locations in the Old Town are more expensive than other restaurants outside of the Old Town, costing between 8.78-13.18 Kuna’s cheaper. That’s equivalent to an average £1.10 per slice (Calder, 2016)

Many pizza restaurants were located within the Old town, where consumers are known to be middle class. (Matić, 2013) The situational factor of finance, influences the encouragement of tourists in Dubrovnik by concentrating on the orientation on specialisation of high quality products. (Mihajlović and Koncul, 2016) Myself and some friends would take daily walks into the old town during our visit. Majority of the time we were on the search for another excellent restaurant. We realised that there was plenty of outdoor restaurants and if not outdoor restaurants, there was always some outdoor seating for the restaurant, around every corner we turned.

Third Day - Wine

The third day of exploring Dubrovnik consisted of us visiting the little town of Ston, where a local family called the Bartulovic family own a winery. Visiting the winery made me recognise how family orientated the community is. They happily invited us all into their family business which is also their family home and served us a full course meal. Platter appetisers consisting of prsut (ham), sir, (cheese) and slane srdele (salted sardines) starters, main and a dessert. When talking to the father of the family, he explained how the business has been passed down from generations and how each family member is truly proud of what they have achieved.

The father of the family, offered us all a session of red wine tasting from his home store which sells red wines from Peljesac and whites from Korcula. (Foster, 2013) Wine is very popular within the business industry. Due to the high competition, wine businesses must ensure that they have a strong marketing technique due to other local wine producers. In the Dubrovnik area I realised that wine tasting is popular and influences all types of people to purchase the different ranges of wines. (Bearing in mind why almost half of university peers purchased bottles from the store)

Throughout the years, wine has increasingly become a daily beverage to drink in Dubrovnik and a wider spectrum of consumers are becoming more influenced to purchase it. The consumer behaviour of wine, is highly looked at, as a status symbol and has a larger demand for it than domestic products. According to the environmental factors, studies show that the volume of wine production is influenced by the geographical characteristics and different climates. This creates high-entry barriers among difference locations within Dubrovnik, influencing consumers where they will purchase wine from, determining by their purchasing power on one hand and brand sensitivity on the other. (Kalazic, Simic and Horvat, 2010)

Wine being a very popular in Dubrovnik, is known to hold one of the best wines in Europe. It is known that five of the top wines from the Dubrovnik region are; Palvac Mali, Pošip, Malvasia, Grk (O., 2017) and if i had to choose... my favourite Rusatac. I am not a wine drinker if I am honest and I have never experienced wine tasting before, however it did influence me, if I would do wine tasting again. My answer? No way! Them after tastes did not tempt me one bit.

Fourth Day - Cable Cars

Well this was supposed to be an activity of the trip earlier in the week, however a little story goes with it as to why it never happened. Picture 30+ students from a Birmingham university heading towards the entrance of a cable car, prior to this we all had climb about a million steps to get to the location. So anyway, as everybody gathered at the entrance of the cable cars, there were plenty of mixed emotions. Some people were excited to go on (that being me), some people were absolutely scared and refused to do it and others acted casual about it but inside you knew that were screaming of fright or excitement.

So, each cable car held around 25 people as myself and another 24 people stepped onto the cable car, a constant beeping sound began. We were all confused and I instantly thought maybe it was the weight of everyone, but then we were told to step back off the cable cars. As the leisure activity staff members starting conversating in Croatian, everybody started to wonder if we were ever going to reach the top to see the breath-taking views of the Adriatic Sea. Unfortunately, the answer was no. the cable car was not moving anywhere that day. I saw how this made my peers and other visitors waiting to board, feel relived and even made them think twice about the cable cars. At first some visitors felt excited to use the cable car but then after the error of movement it changed their opinion straight away.

To bring it altogether this short trip was amazing and also motivating. It has influenced me to want to travel the world more to explore how others are influenced within their own surroundings. It taught me that the people of Dubrovnik cater for all types of people, whether they are high-classed in their situational factor of finance or have a family orientated lifestyle. All factors mentioned have encouraged the leisure activities market to expand and reach out to upcoming consumers. Overall my Dubrovnik journey pushes me to tell everybody who is reading this to visit the amazing city at least once and after you have done that, travel the rest of the world. From my traveling experiences I have seen a lot of extraordinary places and promise you that there is something out there for everybody.

Talk to you soon

Shanise.x