Travel

June 3, 2020 - TCN meets the current EU Presidency Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli who kindly agreed to answer questions on the current travel situation in Croatia and the EU. There is a lot of talk about the internal borders being opened on June 15, but I can't find an official announcement. Are EU internal borders opening on June 15? We are aiming to reopen internal borders on June 15 or June 16, but this has not yet been 100% confirmed. An announcement will be made shortly. There is also a big meeting of EU members scheduled for June 19.…

June 4, 2020 - With tourism slowly starting, who is flying to Split and Dubrovnik, and how many flights are scheduled this month? I met with Croatian Minister of Tourism, Gari Cappelli yesterday to discuss various issues relating to tourism. Minister Cappelli gave me some official answers on EU border openings, air bridges and driving across Europe to enter Croatia. I will publish this interview once all the information in the article is double-checked, hopefully today. Croatia currently hold the EU presidency, so Minister Cappelli is speaking on behalf of the EU, so all must be 100% correct.  One other…

ZAGREB, June 3, 2020 - Austria is lifting all restrictions on cross-border travel with its neighbouring countries, except with Italy, as of Thursday, and restrictions are still in place for travel from Croatia, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg was quoted by Reuters as saying. The abolition of restrictive measures introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic also refers to the abolition of mandatory quarantine for persons coming from abroad and of health checks of persons coming from seven countries - Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. The measure of quarantine and the obligation of having a negative test result…

June 3, 2020 - The latest news from around Croatia’s airports for flights to Croatia with updates from Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik, and Zadar. As we announced earlier, Lufthansa will fly from Frankfurt to Dubrovnik and Pula from the end of June. However, Croatian Aviation announced today that the company published a modified flight schedule to destinations in Croatia, according to which Lufthansa normally operates in the summer flight schedule. In addition to the reintroduction of the Frankfurt-Dubrovnik route, Lufthansa will operate again on the Munich-Dubrovnik route from June 20, once a week, every Saturday. A larger number of weekly flights…

June the 3rd, 2020 - The coronavirus crisis has wreaked havoc with the global travel industry. With many questions surrounding border closers, re-openings, flights and accommodation, the pandemic has caused many issues. As Croatia's formerly stringent anti-epidemic measures are now loosened, just how can seafarers cross Croatian maritime borders and what must they ensure is done? Let's take a look at the official Decision/Decree (Odluka) on what needs to be done when crossing Croatian maritime borders which has now been entered into the Official Gazette (Narodne Novine), which I have translated into English in full: Regarding the application of the…

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 2nd of June, 2020, everyone who is expecting Italian tourists all over Europe and the world this year will be disappointed because, according to the current mood of the Italians, many of them will not leave Italy during the summer. Croatia is a favourite destination for many Italians, but should the Croatian tourism industry simply forget about Italian guests this summer? ''According to current polls, it is estimated that only three percent of those Italians who have gone abroad on holiday in previous years will leave Italy at all this tourist season. That is…

June 3,  2020 - On Tuesday in Pula, Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli assessed that the fact that 33,000 tourists are currently staying in Croatia is a good start, and that number is increasing day by day. "If someone had told us two months ago that we would have between 30,000 and 40,000 tourists in early June, we probably wouldn't have believed them. However, these figures are good and represent a good start, and we got this credit thanks to people from the Civil Protection and health workers," Cappelli said on Slobodna Dalmacija, adding that Croatia, unlike other competing countries…

ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - Currently, there are 33,000 tourists in Croatia, according to the data collected by the e-Visitor, which means that over the last 14 days their number has increased threefold. The latest data show that foreign visitors again exceed the number of local guests, as currently, 21,000 guests with foreign passports are visiting Croatia. Most of the foreigners have come from Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Czech Republic. During the three-month lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 epidemic, local guests outnumbered foreigners, and now the trend is being reversed. The adverse impact of the pandemic on the…

June 1, 2020 — Croatia adjusted expectations for the 2020 tourist season to match the coronavirus era. Planes are mostly out, cars are in. Yet its advertising campaigns and promo videos never mention the two-lane, 818 kilometer asphalt gem running along the spine of its coast. My Renault Clio struggled at the 80 km/h threshold as it puttered along the 20 kilometer stretch of asphalt connecting Rudelici and Karlobag. The driver-side window framed a glamor shot of Pag’s Bura-swept barren surface, looking as if a chunk of the moon fell into the Adriatic Sea. I spun my steering wheel left,…

ZAGREB, June 2, 2020 - The Czech authorities said on Monday the country would open up foreign travel from June 15 after introducing a system to classify other countries according to their coronavirus risk, Reuters reported. Prague will place 19 European states, mostly central, eastern, and southeastern nations, in the least-risky category under its new colour-coded system, and one of those 19 countries is Croatia. According to this classification, travel to and from Britain and Sweden is in its riskiest category. "Czechs have undone most restrictions, with restaurants and hotels fully reopened on May 25. But tourism suffered as lockdown measures hit…