The Golden Pen media award

Croatian National Tourist Board established the Golden Pen media award in 2004. in order to show tourism journalist and their editors how much we appreciate the value of professional writing about Croatia. In the days, the award was given in two categories: the best printed material and the best radio/TV show. In 2015. a new category for the best blog post was introduced. Today, awards are given in five categories: for the best text, radio and TV report, the best blog post and the best post on social networks. 

The award-giving ceremony is a part of a 3-day press trip, organized in a different region in Croatia each year. In the last 18 years, during the Golden pen program, we have hosted over 800 best of the best tourism media representatives from all over the world.

This year, on April 20, the 19th Award Ceremony of the prestigious "Golden Pen" Award was held in the beautiful surroundings of the Barone Fortress in Šibenik.

Our partners, Šibenik Knin County Tourist Board and Šibenik Tourist Board have prepared a multi-day program of touring destinations, sights and attractions for this year’s best foreign journalists, editors, TV crews and anchors, bloggers and influencers.

Did you know?

The reason why we named the award Golden Pen (in Croatian – Zlatna Penkala) is quite simple. Croatia is the home of the fountain pen!

According to the Croatian encyclopedic dictionary, pen is the colloquial name for the fountain pen, ball point pen and mechanical graphite pencil. Where did this name come from? From their “father”, one-time inhabitant of Zagreb, engineer Slavoljub Eduard Penkala (1871-1922), one of the most famous inventors in the 20th century.

The first mechanical pencil in the world was patented by engineer Penkala on the 24th of January 1906 and the first fountain pen in the world with solid-ink, on the 31st of May 1907. The invention was patented in more than 35 countries in the world and manufacturing of the fountain pen and ball point pen in the Zagreb based factory grew.

Penkala’s pencils and fountain pens were exported to over 70 countries in the world and in the time period between 1912 and 1926 it was one of the biggest factories of writing equipment in the world.

Zlatna penkala