Travel

January 4, 2020 - The Split Tourist Board announces yet another record year.  Not surprising, Split has ended 2019 with new records. Namely, Splitski Dnevnik reports that in December, Split hosted a record-breaking 17,000 guests, up 19 percent on arrivals and with 37,800 overnights, an incredible 17 percent increase over the previous year. As many as 10,426 foreign tourists (20 percent more than last year) visited Split in the final month of 2019, confirming its attractiveness in all seasons. Among the international visitors to Split in December, most guests came from Asia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, but also Slovenia, Austria,…

According to data collected by Croatian Highways (HAC), the Maslenica Bridge on the A1 Motorway has been closed to traffic for 10 cumulative months since 2008. Residents of Dalmatia had believed for decades that their isolation would cease after the highway connecting them to continental Croatia was completed. They also welcomed the arrival of the Karlovac - Zadar - Split section of the A1 motorway route, including the "New" Maslenica Bridge, which officially opened on June 26, 2005. But that good fortune only lasted until the first big storm, according to Jurica Gašpar/Morski on December 29, 2019. From then on, depending…

Croatia gets an enormous amount of publicity, but it's quite something else when Larry Namer, the founder of one of the most watched TV channels in the world decides to fly to Zagreb with plans to film a documentary about Croatia for the wildly popular American channel. As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes on the 2nd of January, 2020, Larry Namer, a well known American media mogul, is the founder of E! Entertainment Television, which is, as previously mentioned, by far one of the most famous TV channels in the entire world. On his channel, the ultra-popular reality show Keeping Up…

Croatian Railways is building 400 kilometers of high-speed track and trains on several key routes will be running at speeds of up to 160 km/h within 10 years. The average speed of a current Croatian train is only 58.2 km/h! Only Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro have railway systems worse than ours. However, December has proven to be the month of railways when it comes to major projects in this area of Croatian infrastructure, according to Krešimir Žabec/Jutarnji List on December 30, 2019. For years, there have been reports of billions of euros coming to Croatia to upgrade our catastrophic rail…

The Croatian state budget has been half filled by tourist revenue generated by foreigners during the first 9 months of 2019, marking an increase when compared to the first 9 months of 2018. While this marks a considerable increase, the source of the money is worrying indeed. As Morski writes on the 31st of December, 2019, according to the Croatian National Bank (CNB/HNB), in the first nine months of 2019, foreign tourist revenues amounted to a massive nine billion and 447 million euros in total, representing a nine percent increase, or 769 million euros, over the same period last year.…

December 30, 2019 - The impression interest in EPIC 2020, the first European Patient Experience and Innovation Congress introduces its latest high-profile supporter, none other than Cleveland Clinic CEO and President Tom Mihaljevic.   It has been a real education watching this build up from the sidelines, as well as a lesson in what can be achieved if you aim high.  My introduction to Croatia's medical tourism industry just over two years ago was through a meeting request from Bagatin Clinic CEO Ognjen Bagatin, who wanted to show me not only what his own clinic was doing, but also other leading…

Watch how you drive in the Croatian countryside! Traffic 'big brother' is coming to state roads too. Forty new cameras will be installed throughout Croatia next year and camera traffic surveillance data will be collected and analyzed at a new center under construction in Karlovac. Croatian State Roads Will Get Traffic Cameras Too Following the widespread installation of police cameras and the introduction of motorway speed cameras, new traffic surveillance cameras will be coming to state roads next year, They will be used for traffic control and all data will be collected at the Središnji centar za upravljanje prometom (Central…

The Brijuni islands, once the private summer residence for Josip Broz Tito, longtime president of former Yugoslavia, is getting a long-awaited renovation. A new catamaran will allow access to both islands for the first time and dormitories are being updated for education and research projects. According to Barbara Ban/Novac/Jutarnji List on December 29,2019; Tito’s legendary cinema is also getting a facelift and tourist facilities are undergoing upgrades. Those upgrades include a new information center and an updated Natural History Exhibition. Trains will allow tourists with disabilities to see all of Veliki Brijun, the larger of the two islands. Recently, a…

The construction of a glass platform, known as the Biokovo skywalk located over the edge of the imposing mountain began back in autumn of this year, marking the creation of a rather incredible structure over Makarska indeed. As Slobodna Dalmacija writes on the 19th of December, 2019, the Biokovo skywalk is actually an arch of sorts that will be covered with glass, it is located twelve metres from the edge of a 1228 metre-high cliff, and is the only one of its kind in all of the Republic of Croatia, according to a report from Jutarnji list. As was initially…

The train ride from Karlovac to Zagreb currently takes an hour. A track reconstruction project of the Hrvatski Leskovac - Karlovac railway line, worth 3.45 billion HRK (463.4 million EUR), will cut the train journey to 30 minutes. Section of Current Weekday Zagreb - Karlovac Train Schedule | Croatian Railways Prime Minister Andrej Plenković attended a ceremony in Karlovac on December 27, 2019 to sign the grant agreement for the project to rebuild the existing railway line and construct a second track from Hrvatski Leskovac to Karlovac. Zagreb – Karlovac Train Speeds to 160km/h It is a 44-kilometer section of…