by Pádraic Gilligan, Co-founder, SoolNua Consulting
10 Things Not to Miss in Istria
Istria is a region in the North of Croatia that also extends a little into neighbouring country, Slovenia. At just 3,500 km², the region is remarkably compact. It’s only four times the size of Greater Paris, yet, in a single day, you can watch sunrise from a mountain ridge, cycle through vineyards, enjoy lunch in a medieval hilltop town, kayak beneath limestone cliffs, swim in the Adriatic and finish with dinner overlooking a Venetian harbour.
For business events and incentive travel, this diversity means qualifiers can combine adventure, gastronomy, heritage, wellness, coastal relaxation and authentic rural experiences without changing hotels — a rare competitive advantage that gives Istria an unusually rich experiential palette.
I was fortunate to spend 5 packed days there with my great friend Miha Kovačič and his locally based colleagues, Ana and Nevio of Intours DMC. Here are 10 things not to miss.
1. Valamar Pical, Poreč
The newest and largest resort on the peninsula, Valamar Pical opened in June 2026 and immediately redraws the map of what’s possible for business events in Istria. With 513 keys, an Events Centre for up to 1,200 delegates, seven breakout rooms and in-house technical production, it is built, from the ground up, for groups. The main hall alone configures to 800 theatre or 330 banquet. Valamar, with 37 hotels across five brands, runs 67 per cent direct bookings through centralised reservations: a level of commercial infrastructure you rarely find outside major European cities.
2. The Pula Arena
Two thousand years old, ranked among the ten best preserved Roman amphitheatres in the world, the Arena in Pula seats around 8,000 and is available for exclusive hire at approximately €50,000, plus a technical fee. Lenny Kravitz, David Byrne and Sting have all played here. For incentive groups, the proposition is simpler and more powerful than any of those concerts: a private dinner inside an ancient monument, under the stars, in a town where Roman streets still carry the daily traffic. Nothing else in Istria competes with it for sheer, vertiginous impact.
Two brothers, Sandi and Elvis Chiavalon, planted their first trees in 1997. Today the estate runs to roughly 50,000 trees and produces oil ranked among the finest in the world. Exclusive event rights are held by Intours DMC, which means a group can be the only guests on the property, walking the groves, learning to distinguish varieties by smell alone, then sitting down to a tasting that reframes everything they thought they knew about olive oil. It is one of those experiences where the host’s passion is the programme, and the programme is unforgettable.
4. Truffle Hunting in the Mirna Valley
Guided truffle hunts have run in the Mirna Valley since 1966, drawing around 50,000 visitors a year, and they have lost none of their grip on the imagination. A dog, a handler, an oak forest, the particular silence of deep countryside, and then, suddenly, the find. The best hunts run after rain or at night, when the conditions are right and the drama is heightened. For incentive programming, this is the kind of hands-on, sensory, story-rich activity that qualifiers remember long after the gala dinner has blurred into the others.
5. Roxanich Winery
Motovun-area winemaker Mladen Rožanić has been making natural and biodynamic wines since 2004, exporting to 25 countries including the US, Japan and Taiwan. The winery also offers 33 rooms and apartments, a theatre-style meeting space for 30 and an aesthetic that is all raw concrete, sculptural light and serious wine. A tasting here is not a tour with commercial intent; it is a conversation about what wine can be when someone removes every shortcut. For smaller groups seeking depth over spectacle, Roxanich is among the most distinctive stops on the peninsula.
6. Boutique Hotels: Meneghetti, San Canzian and Rovinj’s Luxury Cluster
Istria’s boutique hotel offer is quietly exceptional. Meneghetti, a Relais & Châteaux property that grew from a four-room B&B in 2004 to 59 keys, three restaurants and a rebuilt spa, sits in its own estate of vines and olive groves. San Canzian (see previous post), a medieval hamlet reborn as an albergo diffuso, pairs uncompromising five-star luxury with raw, working nature.
In Rovinj, three hotels under Maistra ownership are located side by side: Monte Mulini, Istria’s first five-star with 112 rooms and suites, now open again after extensive refurbishment; Grand Park Rovinj (209 rooms and suites), designed by Piero Lissoni with a Michelin-starred restaurant, part of The Worlds’s 50 Best; Hotel Lone with 248 rooms and suites inspired by Croatian design. There is also the intimate Hotel Adriatic with 17 suites situated right on the old town square.
In terms of hospitality investments, two Croatian owned organisations, Valamar Riviera and Maistra Hospitality Group will sink over 1 billion euros into refurbishment projects and new properties between now and 2030.
7. Hum
Marketed, with complete seriousness, as the smallest town in the world, Hum has a permanent population of around 20 and a community-based tourism model built, with IntourDMC, around direct encounters with residents rather than staged performances of local life. It has hosted groups of up to 450. The experience is deliberately unscripted: a conversation with someone whose family has lived here under five different flags, a glass of biska (mistletoe brandy) in the only konoba, the stone lane that takes roughly three minutes to walk end to end. Weather is the main operational risk. The memory formed is not.
8. Dining: Cap Aureo, Agli Amici, JAZ by Ana Roš, Alla Becaccia, Damir & Ornella, Miramare by Fratelli Cerea
Istria’s restaurant scene has quietly grown into one of the most serious on the Adriatic. Cap Aureo at Grand Park Rovinj holds a Michelin star and a view of the old town that competes with the tasting menu for attention. Agli Amici, in the grounds of Monte Mulini, is the only restaurant in Croatia with two Michelin stars. JAZ, in Poreč, is the Istrian project of Slovenian chef Ana Roš, named World’s Best Female Chef, and worth a journey on its own. Alla Becaccia is a restaurant with rooms with an uncompromising commitment to traditional cuisine and cooking methods. Damir & Ornella in Novigrad serves incredible raw fish prepared tableside and dressed with olive oil and lemon; Miramare by Fratelli Cerea offers scintillating sunsets and truly memorable meals … Any one of these would anchor a programme. Having all three within an hour’s drive is an embarrassment of options.
9. Brijuni National Park
Fourteen islands in the northern Adriatic, formerly the private summer residence of Yugoslav President Tito from 1949 to 1979, now a national park open to groups by speedboat transfer from Fažana. Fully privatisable for buyouts, with two refurbished hotels in the harbour and a function space for 300 in theatre style, Brijuni combines natural beauty, Roman ruins and Cold War intrigue in a setting that is genuinely, irreducibly unique. The combination of island exclusivity, historic weight and logistical manageability makes it one of the clearest competitive differentiators Istria holds over every mainland alternative.
10. Denis Ivošević and the Vision Behind the Product
None of what I have described above happens without deliberate, sustained destination leadership. Denis Ivošević, Managing Director of TZ Istra, has spent more than a decade building the product and experience infrastructure that makes Istria incentive-ready, not just tourism-ready. That distinction matters. Many destinations have beautiful scenery and good food. Very few have a DMO leader who understands the specific expectations of incentive buyers, invests in the DMC ecosystem to meet them and has the patience to build a pipeline over years rather than seasons. Denis is among the most strategically accomplished destination marketing professionals I have encountered anywhere. The fact that Istria is ready is, in large part, his doing.
This is the second in a series of posts on Istria. The first, Why Istria Belongs on the Incentive Map, is here. Enormous thanks to Denis Ivošević, Ana and Nevio of IntourDMC, and Miha Kovačič for five of the most instructive days I have spent anywhere in a long time.
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