May 25, 2020 - Following the #CroatiaLongDistanceLove campaign, the Croatian National Tourist Board launched a new communication platform titled 'Enjoy the view from Croatia' to promote Croatian tourism further.

"Welcome to 'Enjoy the view from Croatia', where you can enjoy the countless unique beauties of Croatia in one place. The past months have been challenging. For the sake of each other, we stayed in our homes and thus showed togetherness.

Although distant, here we are together, united in love for the crystal-blue Adriatic, sun-soaked beaches, centuries-old customs, and cheerful people who make every holiday special.

Let's forget about the worries. Let's swim in the virtual waves of Croatia and enjoy the flavors and aromas that we have transferred to the screens in the hope that the hardest is behind us and that we will see each other as soon as possible!

Dear hosts, we would like to add your photos or videos to our gallery. Send us the most beautiful scenes from where you are and together, we will show the world that Croatia is waiting for you, more beautiful than ever and ready to create new memories!" writes the Croatian National Tourist Board about its latest campaign.

Namely, HRTurizam reports that the Croatian National Tourist Board invites you to participate in the project by sending photos or videos, which will be included on the CNTB platform. The photo or video should be sent to the e-mail address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

If you use Instagram, you can send the photo/video to the enjoytheview_fromcroatia profile, use #EnjoyTheViewFromCroatia or mention @enjoytheview_fromcroatia. You can also share your photo or video on Facebook and Twitter using #EnjoyTheViewFromCroatia.

The Croatian National Tourist Board especially invites hosts to send a picture or video to their guests via the inbox of the booking service they use, and write #EnjoyTheViewFromCroatia in the message. Also, the CNTB advises adding a private message if desired (example message: We hope you are well, our vacation is not the same without you!) In the message, share the link to the website so that they too can enjoy the most beautiful Croatian views. If there is a story behind your photo or video that you would like to share, feel free to add a short description.

More information about the Tourist Board's new campaign HERE

To read more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes on the 25th of May, 2020, tourist vouchers that are being introduced to encourage domestic tourist spending, or are just being considered, could partly encourage domestic tourist traffic and local consumption, and make it easier for travellers looking for a holiday. But will such moves be enough to rescue Croatian tourism this year?

Certainly, the voucher system will have a different effect depending on the country in which it is introduced, and these subsidies will hardly "save" the tourist season and make a significant difference in small countries and for those whose tourism has always rested on an export basis. Croatia and Croatian tourism rather awkwardly falls into both of those categories.

In the Croatian tourism sector, domestic guests generate about 90 percent of the traffic, and most of them spend the summer in their own coastal homes, with their friends and family. In the ideal conditions for the real success of the Cro card idea, domestic guests alone, talking in financial terms, would not be enough to opem up hotels, restaurants and other similar attractions.

Without foreign guests, Croatian tourism won't really have a season this year. In addition, the purpose of the Cro card was never to save the season, but to strengthen continental tourism outside the season, as is the case, for example, in neighbouring Hungary.

With the exception of the epidemiological picture and the level of security, which will be the number one factor for all travellers this summer, from the announced Cro card, Croatian tourism could have a much greater impact on similar activities in which the country's emitting markets invest.

In this sense, the markets of countries from which driving to Croatia is relatively easy are important for this year, which are the strongest for us anyway - Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy and Germany, and of course neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Of all these countries, Hungary is the only one that already applies a type of tourist voucher system and already invests a lot in Hungarian tourists. Serious announcements have also come from Slovenia, whose government plans to invest 345 million euros in this support. That is as much as 13 percent of the amount of last year's income generated by the Slovenian tourism sector.

Vouchers are still being considered by the Czechs and Italians, and instead of vouchers, Germany and Austria have strong campaigns for the retention of domestic guests, and since these are large markets, the locals could even save the season for them. This is especially true for the Germans, the world's strongest emitting market, which was responsible for 100 million trips around the world in 2019.

When it comes to the Hungarians, the introduction of their card hasn't significantly affected the results of this emitting market in Croatia so far. The Germans have a sharply narrowed down set of choices for travel this year, due to the lack of flights and the difficult epidemiological picture in one of their traditionally favourite countries - Spain. Turkey is also too far for them to drive to.

If the borders are opened, there will still be enough Germans who can afford to come to the Croatian coast. The Austrians have already told Croatia how much they're looking forward to see the Adriatic, the Czechs were also the first to launch the idea of ​​creating a corridor to Croatia, and they're ready to spend hours on the road to reach the Croatian Adriatic sea.

Make sure to follow our travel page for more on Croatian tourism in the coronavirus era.

May 25, 2020 - A cool new feature from Google Translate means TCN is now available in any language in the world. Here are links to Croatia's key tourism markets. 

A lot of people have a love/hate relationship, a bit like flying with Ryanair. There are things that they don't like about it, but they realise it is a very useful tool when trying to understand a foreign language or get to a destination cheaply. 

Google Translate has been a huge help to me (and I am sure many others) during the corona crisis. Most especially for me when I was doing my shift of the daily corona live update (and apologies for the less than perfect end product during those crazy weeks). 

The tool has definitely improved over the last year, although it is of course far from perfect. I got to know some of its quirks and actually published one of them before realising. 

"There are no new newborns in Virovitica" was how Google Translate sometimes reported that there were no new cases of corona.

And then I discovered something super cool the other day, thanks to Kreso Macan, that you can now have Google Translate built into your website, so that readers can see the article and all the images, links and videos in their own language and on the TCN site. 

Super cool. The quality of the translation comes with the Google Translate disclaimer, and we will continue to translate certain important articles into Croatia, but I am super curious to see how popular this feature might be. 

In order to encourage you to try, here are links to our main travel info page, which is updated daily, in the languages of Croatia's main tourist markets. Once you click, you can browse TCN as you would normally, just in your native language (with the Google Translate quality), or simple select another language.  

Um diesen Text auf Deutsch zu lesen, klicken Sie auf (article in German via Google Translate)

Če želite prebrati to besedilo v slovenščini, kliknite na (article in Slovenian via Google Translate)

Aby przeczytać ten tekst po polsku, kliknij (article in Polish via Google Translate)

Chcete-li číst tento text v češtině, klikněte na (article in Czech via Google Translate)

Ak si chcete prečítať tento text v slovenčine, kliknite na (article in Slovak via Google Translate)

A szöveg magyar nyelvű elolvasásához kattintson a gombra (article in Hungarian via Google Translate)

Да бисте прочитали овај текст на српском, кликните на (article in Serbian via Google Translate)

Per leggere l'ultimo aggiornamento di viaggio in italiano (article in Italian via Google Translate)

Pour lire ce texte en français, cliquez sur (article in French via Google Translate)

Para leer este texto en español, haga clic en (article in Spanish via Google Translate)

Para ler este texto em português, clique em (article in Portuguese via Google Translate)

Om deze tekst in het Nederlands te lezen, klik op (article in Dutch via Google Translate)

For at læse denne tekst på dansk, skal du klikke på (article in Danish via Google Translate)

For å lese denne teksten på norsk, klikk på (article in Norwegian via Google Translate)

För att läsa denna text på svenska, klicka på (article in Swedish via Google Translate)

Voit lukea tämän tekstin suomeksi napsauttamalla tätä (article in Finnish via Google Translate)

Чтобы прочитать этот текст на русском языке, нажмите на (article in Russian via Google Translate)

Щоб прочитати цю статтю українською мовою, натисніть тут (article in Ukrainian via Google Translate)

Pentru a citi acest text în limba română, faceți clic pe (article in Romanian via Google Translate)

За да прочетете този текст на български език, щракнете тук (article in Bulgarian via Google Translate)

Për të lexuar këtë tekst në shqip, klikoni këtu (article in Albanian via Google Translate)

이 텍스트를 한국어로 읽으려면 (article in Korean via Google Translate)

要阅读中文文本，请单击 (article in Chinese via Google Translate)

Da biste pročitali ovaj članak na hrvatskom, kliknite ovdje (article in Croatian via Google Translate)

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

Read the Croatian Travel Update in your language - now available in 24 languages

Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community.

May 25, 2020 - A favorable epidemiological picture is bringing tourists back to Croatia. There are currently about 22,000 of them in the country - half are domestic guests, and of the foreign ones - most are Slovenes, but also Germans.

Dnevnik.hr reports that in Croatia, they say, they feel safe. A pleasant temperature just above 20 degrees, swimming pools, and good company are the only things that Germans need for a vacation in Croatia.

But to get here, they still needed more paperwork than in previous years. “At all borders, we had to show our reservations, passports and phone numbers,” Ali from Germany said.

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community.

It only took them a few extra minutes of waiting at the borders. They had no problems moving through Austria, Slovenia, and finally to Croatia.

"We left early in the morning, we waited fifteen to twenty minutes at the border with Austria, and about 30 minutes with Slovenia and Croatia. The trip was very nice," adds Ali.

The excellent epidemiological picture in Croatia, which is better than in their country, is the reason why they never thought about canceling their reservation.

"I feel safer here than in Germany because Istria has been without the coronavirus for about three weeks now, while there are many more in Germany," says Werner from Germany.

But there were cancellations and relocations of reservations, especially in the pre-season, that is, in April, May and the first half of June.

"What makes us extremely happy is the fact that we managed to keep about 90% of reservations in terms of transferring reservations to later dates, but also in the 2021 season or through vouchers that guests will use for reservations in the same facilities," said Mladen Bujanic, co-owner of the travel agency Myistria.

The facilities that will be full this season are certainly holiday homes, but also camps that provide guests with isolation and privacy. However, we must accept the fact that occupancy will not be at the level of previous years.

"We hope that from the middle or the beginning of June from the 10th to the 15th, we will really start something that will look like a pre-season and start for the main season with the opening of borders with our most important markets," said Denis Ivošević from the Istria County Tourist Board.

The travel agencies note that the amount of official information and instructions for tourists should definitely be increased. This is a year of struggle for every guest.

"What will help keep guests in the future is certainly unambiguous and clear communication of the conditions under which one can come to the Republic of Croatia as a foreign tourist," said Mladen Bujanić, co-owner of the travel agency Myistria.

There is also an increase in the number of domestic guests, who are currently Croatia's most numerous tourists, along with Slovenes and Germans. "We could hardly wait for these security measures to be lifted, for these county borders to be opened so that we can move a little," Biljana said.

And some traveled even before the measures were lifted in their country, so on their return, they will have to be quarantined, or tested for COVID-19. “When the borders reopen, everyone will come, they’re not really scared now, but the only problem is later, when they get home,” states Debbie from Austria. 

Nautical tourism is among the first to recover. Spanish media report that some multinational companies are relocating their fleets to the Croatian coast.

Guest of Dnevnik Nova TV Sean Lisjak, president of the Marina Association at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, says he isn't sure if it is true, but that he heard the media broadcast the same news.

"We are pleased with the information. It is too early to say whether there has been any official contact with the companies located among our marinas. Tomorrow we will all be informed about all this. If so, we welcome it, our marinas are ready to receive new clients," he said.

For the past weekend, he states that the first modest arrival of clients was recorded.

"This weekend, we have already recorded a more serious arrival of clients in our marinas. No marina has not recorded a more serious arrival of individual guests, boat owners who, based on the decision on the possibility of coming to our country, used it," he said.

"We appeal to speed up the flow of guests with passes and hope that their number will grow every weekend. We also recorded the first charter clients, which makes us very happy because some marinas have vessels in their fleets that sailed. This is at the level of some 200 or 300 clients and there are about fifty ships that have come from central Dalmatia from marina to marina," said Lisjak, adding that he hoped that two ugly months were behind us.

To increase the number of guests, he states that the level of service quality in marinas is rising every year. "We are recognized by that. The Institute of Tourism evaluates services and customer satisfaction every year and we rank very high. There are some shortcomings, but they are not drastic to the point of devaluing us," Lisjak explained, adding that it is important to increase the number of client arrivals.

"It should be possible for vessels smaller than 24 meters, i.e., our real transits, clients from Slovenian and Italian marinas or anywhere in the world, to be able to enter our marinas under the same conditions without any problems," Lisjak concluded.

To read more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

Zadar Port's coverage is set to cover a wider maritime area as a new high-speed line which will transport passengers along the Zadar-Preko (Ugljan) route is prepared for introduction.

You might look at the idea of life on a quiet, idyllic Croatian island as the absolute epitome of bliss. With a daily view of the sparkling Adriatic sea and stunning scenery at your fingertips, it's hard to think of it in any other way from afar.

You'd be right in some aspects, but every rose has its thorn and when it comes to these little pieces of paradise dotted along the Croatian mainland, the issue of secure, regular maritime transport has become a common bone of contention for their permanent inhabitants.

As Morski writes on the 23rd of May, 2020, the Croatian Government has adopted a proposal for a decision to expand the coverage of the Zadar Port basin by as much as 114,936 square metres in order to create new traffic areas and introduce a high-speed line intended for maritime passenger traffic on the Zadar-Preko route.

The aforementioned Zadar-Preko line is the busiest line connecting the island community with Zadar on the mainland, but currently, in the area of the City Port, the line is suffering from traffic restrictions due to other high-speed shipping lines to the surrounding islands.

Due to the traffic and a larger number of tourist boats operating during the summer season in the area, there is an obvious need to increase the level of general maritime traffic safety in the entire basin covered by Zadar Port, which will be achieved by arranging and expanding the defined coastal zone.

The pool of Zadar Port is being expanded in accordance with the Spatial Development Plan of the City of Zadar.

For more on maritime connections and links between Croatian islands, follow our dedicated travel page.

As Morski writes on the 24th of May, 2020, the wildly popular Balearic islands which belong to Spain are losing foreign guests rapidly in terms of nautical tourism due to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic and Spain's unfavourable epidemiological picture. Instead, those nautical tourists are sailing here to Croatia, where there are no strict measures to control the infection in place anymore, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo writes.

In an article entitled "Croatia is fishing in the waters of the Balearic islands", El Mundo points out that some multinational companies are moving their fleets to the Croatian coast, which is also a popular nautical destination, reports HRT.

For years, the beautiful Spanish archipelago in the Mediterranean has arguably been the centre of nautical tourism with a remarkable growth in the number of sailboats. Foreigners enjoyed sailing around the islands of Mallorca, Ibiza, Menorca, Formentera and Cabrera, which saw the injection of tens of millions of euros into the economy of these Spanish islands each and every summer. More than 350 companies focused on the Central European market are registered there.

However, despite secure and lucrative summers past, El Mundo notes that companies that rent out medium-sized sailboats, rather than large yachts, are worried about the frequent customer calls they have been receiving over recent days.

''They are calling on us to cancel or postpone their reservations until next year. The damage has been brutal. We're completely paralysed,'' said María Jimenez, a spokesperson for companies that rent sailboats.

Since the state of emergency was declared in Spain back on March the 14th, 2020, navigation, travel between the provinces and the arrival of foreign tourists have been banned on the Balearic islands. People who come from abroad, and currently that is only Spanish students or workers, must be in self-isolation for fourteen days upon arrival.

Due to that, a new phenomenon has emerged, that tourists who once frequented Spain's Balearic islands are switching over to the ''main competitor, Croatia", as reported by El Mundo.

Some multinational companies are moving sailboats east, to here on the Croatian coast, and they have stated in their advertisements that "there is no fourteen-day quarantine in Croatia".

Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Ribero told the Spanish news agency EFE on Thursday that foreign tourists could start arriving in July when the country's health situation is likely to become more favourable. Spain, along with the United Kingdom and Italy, is among the most affected European countries with 235,000 cases and 28,630 deaths from the new coronavirus.

For more, follow our travel page.

May 24, 2020 - German tourist are desperate to come, Croatian tourism is desperate to welcome them. A prime time German TV feature follows a journalist coming on holiday to Croatia. 

We live in the Information Age, and yet there is very little information - at least accurate information - about the current travel situation in Europe. 

People want to go on holiday but do not know if they will be subjected to quarantine rules, and a host of other uncertainties. 

The German market is a natural fit for Croatia. No planes need to be involved, simply drive to the end destination of Adriatic heaven, and the beach is yours. 

But there are uncertainties along the way. What happens on the borders with Austria, Slovenia and Croatia?

Some of the most popular articles on TCN right now are accounts of people who have managed to reach Croatia by car from places like Belgium and the UK. Ordinarily a very dull story, but in these corona times, a riveting read. 

A great addition to the info flow this evening from a member of the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community - thanks Francis!

German TV channel ARD  ( one ) showed tonight at 19 h 20 a nice story "going to Croatia ".  Prime Time !

You can see the video report here

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community. 

ZAGREB, May 24, 2020 - Nino Raspudic, a professor of Italian language and literature at Zagreb's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, who is more known as a political analyst and columnist, said on Sunday that he would be a candidate on a slate of the Bridge party in the 5 July elections.

Announcing his political engagement in the next parliamentary elections, Raspudic said in the HTV's talks show on Sunday that he had been writing articles as a political columnist for newspapers for more than 10 years.

"This has been a sort of political work. It was not engagement party-wise, however, I have made some impact on shaping political discourse in Croatia," said this university professor, born in Mostar in 1975.

Raspudic said that "the democratic deficit" in Croatia, in the European Union and globally, when it comes to election processes, was the main reason why he had decided to run in the elections.

Raspudic's announcement ensued a few days after the Bridge party said that his wife Marija Selak Raspudic, a philosopher and political analyst, decided to run in the elections as an independent candidate on its slates.

The Raspudic couple has been perceived in the public as a reinforcement for Bridge after several officials and parliamentarians left the party or said they would not run in the next election, including Slaven Dobrovic, a former environmental protection minister, Ines Strenja, Ivana Nincevic-Lesnadric, and Robert Podolnjak.