August the 2nd, 2021 - The coronavirus pandemic has taken an unimaginable toll on global travel and tourism, and countries which rely very heavily on this economic segment such as Croatia, have taken a heavy blow indeed. That said, things have dramatically improved when compared to 2020, and Valamar Riviera's traffic at the height of the season is more than encouraging.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, in the first six months of this year, Valamar Riviera generated an impressive 291 million kuna in total revenues, which more than doubled the revenues they had during the same period in 2020. At the same time, a positive operating profit of 19.6 million kuna was achieved, which is an increase compared to 2020, but it is also 67 million kuna less than in pre-crisis 2019, the company announced recently.
The achieved revenue growth is the result of the easing of travel restrictions, high demand from key markets, good season preparation, the opening of most facilities in June and significant investments in Valamar Riviera's wider portfolio in previous years.
Despite the continued impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a significant improvement in operating profit compared to 2020 was achieved through the general rationalisation of operations and internal austerity measures, as well as the continued implementation of the "Pause, Restart" programme which was adopted in April 2020. On top of that, the further use of measures the government introduced last year for support for job preservation also plays a role, Valamar explained.
In July 2021, Valamar generated about 90 percent of the board's revenues realised in the same month in 2019, which, together with the semi-annual results, indicates the beginning of recovery for tourism, which hasn't come a moment too late.
"In July, Istria and the northern Adriatic destinations achieved a result similar to that of 2019, while Dubrovnik and the southern destinations are still lagging behind. The trend of bookings for August is improving in southern destinations, and in the north it's almost reached the levels we saw back in 2019. The level of uncertainty for business results in 2021 remains high due to uncertainty about the further development of the pandemic across Europe and the generally low vaccination coverage here in Croatia. We expect that the tourism sector will continue to be affected by the crisis throughout 2021, while a return to regular operations is expected in 2022 and 2023,'' they concluded in their recent announcement.
For more, make sure to follow our dedicated business section.
