Croatia's hero city is on its way up.
Vukovar, otherwise known as Croatia's hero city, has come a long way since the horrific images and videos of a war torn, ravaged city circulated around the world and the town's name became synonymous with the horrendous Ovčara massacre carried out by Serbian paramilitaries.
This now quiet, picturesque town in Eastern Croatia is moving up in the world, with investments planned and with more and more tourists discovering continental Croatia's hidden gems, Vukovar is getting in on action, and deservedly so.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 9th of February, 2018, Vukovar's tourism figures have shown a promisingly positive trend, with the number of arrivals increasing by 37 percent, and the number of overnight stays is even more significant than that.
Vukovar's Mayor, Ivan Penava, held a press conference yesterday in which he stated that last year's tourism acheivements were excellent.
He made sure to emphasise the fact that the number of tourist arrivals in the city had increased by an encouraging 37 percent, meaning that back in 2016 there were 34,917 visitors to Vukovar, compared with the significantly higher number of 47,849 last year.
"The number of overnight stays is even more significant. In 2016, the eVisitor system recorded 47,504 overnights, while last year it was 70,621, an increase of as much as 48 percent. There are eight new accommodation facilities with 188 beds. As far as the port authority of Vukovar is concerned, in 2016, 224 cruisers with 27,122 passengers arrived, and last year there were 205, carrying 27,162 passengers. The announcements for this year say that we will have 221 ships arriving,'' Penava stated, recalling that a cooperation agreement with the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management from Opatija was signed recently, given the expectation of tourism growth in Vukovar on an annual basis from 15 to 20 percent.
Penava also noted that the city had two representative museums in the short term, which should also work to attract many more tourists.
