Successful 19th General Meeting of Global Passenger Network in Dubrovnik

The GPN – Global Passenger Network Association met last week in Dubrovnik to celebrate its 19th General meeting. Olivari, its Croatian member, hosted this 19th meeting with a high participation, nearly 26 leading coach operator companies attended.

On this occasion, a new country, Ireland, joined GPN: Extreme Ireland presented its company and later, it was admitted unanimously as the official representative of this country in GPN, which raises to 30, the number of member countries.

GPN Association has also a program for strategic partners in the motorcoach industry. In particular, nine companies are currently part of GPN’s partnership program (Daimler Evobus, Irizar, VDL, Vanhool, DAF, Tom Tom Telematics, Azimut, Vianor and Europart). At this meeting, we experienced for the very first time a very productive break out session with the strategic partners of GPN, where participants were divided into small groups by countries and partners could hear their different views on the coach’s future in 2020. For the first time partners led each of the groups and could take note of the expectations of every one of them in order to work on products that give solution to their needs in the future.

The positive tone of the comments of the participants, reflects the effectiveness and satisfaction which raises in each of the partners and members this type of session, in which, on the one hand, members can express their future needs to representatives at European level for companies leading in the sector and on the other hand, partners can be heard in a single room, opinions and inputs from more than 30 countries about the direction to follow in its products in the next years.

After the meeting, the guests had the opportunity to make a guided tour of the old city and enjoyed a lunch in a traditional Croatian boat moored at the old port exclusively for the members of the Association.

For the first time, this meeting included the presentation of a major project led during the last months by the German University of Ravensburg, of great notoriety in the world of tourism. The project has analyzed the GPN organization since its inception till nowadays and what should be the expansion strategy that must follow the group. Its conclusions and results will be the basis of the plan of action followed by GPN in the coming years.