As I am coming towards the end of my trip I have realized that a lot of my pre-expectations of Croatia were very different than what I have experienced. We worked with the City Council of Neum, Bosnia. We helped them with getting their city to become a more tourist town and helped with their marketing and environmental issues. Something I learned while abroad was how underdeveloped many of these European countries are with social media and marketing. They have little to no knowledge on how vital and important it is to use social media in order to gain tourist attraction. They also have a significantly less amount of funds than the United States which is a hard obstacle to navigate. Engaging with our clients was not too difficult unlike I thought it would be. Although there was a language barrier at times, my group and the clients all worked together to come up with solutions in ways that were easy to understand from both sides. Conducting business in another country can be difficult but overall I learned a lot and it helped me to be more culturally aware. It made me feel accomplished that we were able to help them and I hope that our guidance will aid Neum into become a tourist hot spot.
