May the 16th, 2021 - Makarska Riviera private accommodation owners are biting their nails in anticipation of the rapidly approaching 2021 tourist season which still has very many question marks dangling above its head despite the more favourable epidemiological situation.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, yet another coronavirus-influenced Croatian tourist season is just around the corner. The epidemiological situation across the country is fortunately becoming much more favourable, the number of new cases of infection has been declining over recent days. However, there is uncertainty among private accommodation owners as the season largely depends on measures in other countries from which tourists typically come.

We often read about the situation for Croatian tourism, primarily from the aspect of large hotel companies, while the extremely important segment of those who rent out private accommodation to foreign visitors is very rarely mentioned. Slobodna Dalmacija examined the expectations and current state of reservations and the perspectives of Makarska Riviera private accommodation owners.

"We're totally ready for the season. Taught by last season, of course we're cautious. We don't expect madness from the reservations. Booking for this year mainly consists of reservations from Poland and Slovenia. It's obvious that the German market hasn't yet been definitively defined. If and when it opens, then that'll be something,'' said Makarska Riviera private accommodation renter Eleonora Filipetti.

"It's hard to be smart when it comes to setting prices. Currently, the poorer booking is a reflection of market conditions, vaccinations and measures, and the question is whether our product is too expensive or not. We'll play with prices depending on the interest,'' she added.

Makarska Riviera private accommodation landlord Pavo Boric revealed how they're preparing for the season in beautiful Tucepi.

"According to all the reservations we've received so far, I think that this season will be like it was in 2020, with the possibility of better realisation for September compared to last year. In terms of representation, for now it's dominated by reservations from Austria and Germany, and we've got a good number of bookings from them. There are 30 percent more Slovenians compared to last year, and reservations from Bosnia and Herzegovina have also started to arrive. The prices have remained the same as they were back in 2019, with previous guests having 10 percent discounts. I think that by lowering prices we'd lose out in the long run. We're being realistic with the prices,'' he said.

For more, follow our dedicated travel section.

May the 12th, 2021 - The Croatian 2021 tourist season continues to have multiple question marks hanging over its head as warmer weather is here and the summer is rapidly approaching. Despite the advent of numerous vaccines which are highly effective against the novel coronavirus, issues with tourism and travel remain.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian tourist market has finally been somewhat more lively in recent days, and the agencies for renting apartments and holiday homes are recording slightly more inquiries from foreign guests, but they're primarily related to July and August. Some guests say that they've already been vaccinated, and some ask if the hosts have received the vaccine, there are even requests for everyone they will come into contact with during their stay to be vaccinated, writes Slobodna Dalmacija.

The owner of a boarding house from the Central Dalmatian island of Brac, who wished to remain anonymous, will have to fulfill such a request put to them by would-be guests. This individual says that given the improving situation with the pandemic over recent days, there are more inquiries from guests for the upcoming Croatian 2021 tourist season.

Minimal interest

Bookings for the month of June is currently extremely poor, in fact it's terrible. However, guests are insecure and tend to ask for a greater possibility of cancellation, even when they're offered various discounts on making an advance payment. This was confirmed by Natasa Ljubicic from the "Top Season" agency.

''Most of them inquire about the possibilities of cancellation and typically ask for a complete refund in such a case. This is very inconvenient for owners who want to agree to cancel, but at least three days before arrival, but guests want it to be made possible one day before their planned arrival,'' explained Natasa, who has many years of experience under her belt. She confirmed that interest in apartments in cities is really small, but that she expects that most guests this Croatian 2021 tourist season will book at the last minute, which is understandable given the unstable situation regarding travel for leisure, vaccination certificates and negative test rules at borders.

She added that those guests who come by plane are waiting for the proper regulation of air transport on which they can actually rely, because one day, as she recalled, some guests informed her that their flight to Split had been cancelled.

The Dubrovnik-based agency Online Croatia has also noticed a more lively interest in reservations in recent days. What dominates conversations with foreign tourists is, as with others, the issue of flexible booking cancellations. They have almost no reservations for June, and they're also not interested in September because they assume that tourists are wary of last year's situation happening again this year, when at the end of August the public health situation worsened everywhere and countries began to close their borders.

''This year, it's more complicated to enter the country, given that negative PCR tests or confirmations of vaccination or proof of having recovered from COVID-19 are required, which is, for example, an additional considerable expense for a family of four. According to the latest information we have, such an obligation also applies to children older than seven, and we don't know if it will stay that way because something does alter every now and then,'' stated Maja Cupic, the owner of another agency.

Cupic, whose agency has focused more on closer markets since the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic, also expects that most bookings this Croatian 2021 tourist season will be at the last minute.

For more, follow our travel section. For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of vaccination points and testing centres across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and choose your preferred language.

May the 9th, 2021 - Croatian Tourism Minister Brnjac has stated that she feels that Croatia has done all it can to send out the message to its emitting markets that it is taking the pandemic seriously and that all epidemiological rules are being fully respected.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Nikolina Brnjac said that she believes that the Republic of Croatia has successfully met all of the preconditions for tourists eager for a holiday following a terrible 2020 to recognise the country as safe for precisely that purpose.

The summer tourist season could be better than last year for Croatian, Tourism Minister Brnjac told Vecernji list on Saturday.

"The good news is coming from Germany, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands… which shows that Croatia is high on the list of priorities for their residents when choosing a holiday destination," said the minister, commenting on forecasts that tourist traffic in 2021 could reach about 60 percent of pre-pandemic, record 2019.

In the latest European Commission (EC) report, she added, Croatia has climbed up and is now among the top 10 most desirable European tourist destinations for travellers this summer.

"This is certainly supported by the announcements of as many as 180 airlines from Croatia's emitting markets. Especially good news about new airlines is the latest from New York to Dubrovnik. This is a sign that everyone is seriously counting on coming to Croatia this summer. If the epidemiological situation in Croatia and on our emitting markets is favourable, with all the activities we're carrying out, I believe that we can achieve a better season than the one we had last year,'' Tourism Minister Brnjac stated.

"The borders are open, the Safe Stay in Croatia project has more and more users every day, we've defined more than 300 points for testing tourists in tourist centres/destinations, which can be found at www.safestayincroatia.hr. We're co-financing antigen tests for tourists, we've started vaccinating Croatian tourist workers, we'll have special epidemiological data for the islands, and we have launched the Experience local campaign, with which we want to attract domestic tourists as well.

We're ready for the season, and the epidemiological situation is crucial to that,'' Tourism Minister Brnjac stated.

For more, follow our travel section.

May the 3rd, 2021 - The Croatian hospitality industry has taken an incredibly heavy blow from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as travel for leisure has been made either illegal or significantly more difficult, and bars and restaurants haven't even been able to open their doors to serve the local populations. It seems that getting the staff will be the next big obstacle the sector has on the cards.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, more than 11,000 waiters from across the Republic of Croatia have left their jobs and their sector due to the pandemic and the intermittent and draining lockdowns. Some former waiters went instead to the somewhat economically safer industry of construction, some went abroad, and some looked for third jobs.

As the Croatian hospitality industry would typically be busy seeking seasonal and other such employees at this time of year ahead of the busy tourist season, it is becoming more and more obvious that this will now pose a huge problem ahead of this year's already questionable tourist season. According to Vedran Jakominic, a member of the Catering Committee of the Voice of Entrepreneurs Association (UGP) and the owner of King’s Caffe, about 40,000 people worked in the sector before the pandemic.

"That number has been slashed to 50 percent. Many waiters, chefs and support staff lost their jobs. We'll have the exact numbers [of who has remained in the sector] only this autumn. There are now a huge number of zombie companies in Croatia that exist solely to provide their workers with state benefits and nothing else. If the season and the end of the year are very productive, I expect that approximately 60 percent of currently active catering and hospitality establishments will remain on their feet. Otherwise, there will be nobody left,'' warned Jakominic for Lider.

They say the same from the National Association of Caterers. The great demand for waiters arose because a huge number of them left the Croatian hospitality industry at various points during the ongoing pandemic.

According to the aforementioned Association, about 5,000 waiters are currently wanted before the arrival of the summer tourist season, and more than 11,000 of them have left, which represents more than 20 percent of the total number of employees in the hospitality industry.

For more, make sure to follow our business section.

 May 3, 2021 - The new Total Croatia tourism portal will be launched at 10:30 this morning (you can watch it live here). TC CEO Paul Bradbury was interviewed by Index.hr ahead of the launch. A translation. 

How and why did you decide to launch a new website about Croatian tourism?

It was an idea I had a couple of years ago, to produce a slicker, tourism information site, that was more accessible than Total Croatia News. TCN has more than 50,000 articles now, so we definitely have growing pains. But the pressures of running TCN meant that I put the new Total Croatia info site on hold until recently. 

The recent lawsuits from HTZ were an initial shock, but after that a reality check. Rather than try and work with the system and bring change from within, I realised that there was really no point. My wife suggested I finish the Total Croatia site, which was a genius idea, for which I will always be grateful. We refreshed the original 86 articles with 2021 information. The results were astonishing. Within a week we were on the first page of Google for 31 target keywords for - Bosnia to Croatia (1), Montenegro to Croatia (2), Currency in Croatia (2), Split to Dubrovnik (4) etc. More interestingly, we had one French article, a guide how to get from Split to Dubrovnik. It was still number 7 on Google France. We refreshed it, and now it is number 2. 

I then realised that without too much effort, I could create a fully commercial, excellent information website for Croatian tourism in multiple languages. One that would rank much high than HTZ (not hard). And if I had strategic partnerships with quality private tourism businesses, we could simply bypass the system and bring quality tourism back to Croatia. We launch on Monday at a press conference at Lazareti in Dubrovnik at 10:30. You are more than welcome to join. There will be beers after.

What will your new website offer to its readers?

It will offer the best and most current tourism and lifestyle information about Croatia, answering the questions tourists want to know, in their language #CroatiaInYourLanguage. How to cross the Slovenian border, can use euros in Croatia, can you take pets on the catamaran to Hvar, airport guides and a visit to all the national parks. 

There are comprehensive pages on topics such as Croatian wine, food, desserts, olive oil, rakija (actually my favourite article on the page - here is the Croatian version), buying property, flights, renting a car, lifestyle, as well as the most popular article on the site after the daily travel update - an expat's honest view of living in Croatia after 18 years, the good, the bad and the ugly. 

By far the most popular article is our daily travel update, which has migrated from TCN. This was one of the cornerstones of the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community, which recently won the 2021 International Grand PRix for Crisis Management. The Viber community project brought an estimated 10 million euro of tourism spend to Croatia, with just 2000 kuna investment and a LOT of hard work from the teams of Mediacor, Manjgura, TCN and outstanding support from MUP.The TC portal will be great for tourists, but also for hotels and private accommodation owners, who can share these links with their guests (or put them on their accommodation websites), so that they can give great information to their German and Hungarian guests in their own languages. 

Do you see HTZ as your competition?

Not at all. To be competition, you have to be competitive. As I said on various television interviews, I see them as entirely irrelevant. Croatia has an INCREDIBLE private tourism sector, with absolutely no need of HTZ in its current format. I am hugely encouraged that some big names in the private sector have already committed to working with TC. These include exclusive destination partners such as Hilton in Zagreb, Suncani Hvar for Hvar Town, Falkensteiner Punta Skala for Zadar, Savills for Dubrovnik Real Estate, Algebra for Education, and Adriatic Weddings Croatia for weddings. If you are interested in work with us and you are not an uhljeb, contact us on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

You’ve said that you’re open for cooperation with certain people who work in tourism. What can they expect from your new website?

The very best exposure to tourists both before they arrive and while they are here. In multiple languages. We will also do lots of promotion via TCN, our Google News site, which CNN sometimes links to for travel info as HTZ does such a poor job, and which brought ABC News to Dubrovnik last summer. This resulted in 6 feature stories about Croatia on ABC News, including Good Morning America, which was watched by 12.5 million people. 

But we also want to help the little guy offering quality, authentic tourism. Let me tell you a story of how I signed up the first TC partner 3 weeks ago.

I was on Hvar and got a call asking me to be in Zagreb the next day at 13:00 to interview Mark Viduka. The 06:35 catamaran and bus would get me into the office at 14:30, so too late.

I posted on Facebook to see if anyone was driving and could take me. Within 2 minutes, a message! I am not going to Zagreb, but I will drive you there, as it means I will have 4 hours of your time. I am in tourism in Split and Stari Grad for 10 years, and I followed Total Hvar from the start.

And what a journey it was. I fell in love with Nikola from Nostress Boats. I was impressed by his passion, local knowledge and approach to customer service. He was a skipper with his own boat and mooring in Stari Grad, and had started out on his own after working with a 5-star boutique hotel on Hvar. He was looking to promote his business and thought TCN/TC would be a good place. By the team we reached Zagreb, we had agreed a deal where he will be the only boat transfer option for Stari Grad in a Page. In 10 languages. 

We are still setting everything up, but if anyone is interested in being a destination partner or in advertising, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  PLEASE write in the Subject - Index/Destination/Sector - eg Index/StariGrad/BoatTransfer. We will offer a discount on our rates for Index.hr readers. This offer is valid until May 5, 2021. Please don't expect an immediate answer but we will get back to you. 

One VERY cool feature of what we can offer is the fruits of an exciting partnership with augmented reality specialists, Equinox XR. The Equinox team has created a virtual tour guide in the shape of Dubrovnik's beloved patron saint, St Blaise, who will be able to devise all sorts of virtual fun, tours and quests, if Dubrovnik tourism wants such a thing. 

What kind of summer season do expect this year in Croatia?
Personally I think it would be a very good one, certainly better than people are expecting. The pandemic is the great unknown of course. As is the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism's vaccination strategy and message.  The Brits and Americans are vaccinated. Meanwhile in Croatia... Ah, Hrvatska. 

I would just like to finish by publicly thanking everyone who has been SO supportive of this assault on free speech. I can't remember the last time an issue got 95% support on an Index poll. 

The site is not quite finished, but we have been feeding the Google god daily, so you can check it out here. 

Details of how to watch the live launch this morning at 10:30.

April the 30th, 2021 - GDPR in Croatian tourism must be as respected as it is in all forms of society. The protection of personal data is of paramount importance when taking information from guests, but just how is GDPR used, respected, and above all not violated in Croatian tourism?

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, the processing of personal data of guests for the purpose of putting the detais of a guest into Croatia's well known eVisitor system is based on the Tourist Tax Act and the Ordinance on the eVisitor system, and as such represents a legal obligation of private accommodation owners/managers. In the event that a guest refuses to provide information, the service provider has the right to refuse to provide the service. However, this situation can be circumvented by informing guests in advance about the processing of data through, for example, a privacy policy online.

If GDPR in Croatian tourism is being looked at through the eyes of private accommodation providers who own their own websites, care should be taken to ask for consent for cookies (other than the necessary ones) and a short information notice about them should be provided. Such renters should also have a policy or privacy statement available.

All of the above information was provided during training on personal data protection and harmonisation with the GDPR in Croatian tourism, as part of which an online interactive workshop organised by the Personal Data Protection Agency (AZOP) and the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK). The information was presented to 230 participants who were interested in the correct processing of personal data and specifics in the tourism industry.

Furthermore, the copying and scanning of personal documents and their archiving is not allowed unless OCR scanning methods are used which automatically process only the data that are allowed to be taken and absolutely nothing else. Those guests who pay for excursions (such as in active tourism) don't need to give consent, but must, in accordance with the Law on the Provision of Services in Tourism, be informed both verbally and in writing before the excursion takes place.

The aforementioned training session's aim is to support enterprises in the Croatian tourism industry in harmonising all of their business processes with the provisions of the sometimes confusing GDPR. This form of training was one of the activities conducted by this Agency, within the implementation of the EU project ARC (Awareness Raising Campaign for SMEs), with the same the goal, which is to support SMEs in aligning their business processes with GDPR rules.

For more on Croatian tourism, make sure to follow our travel section.

April 27, 2021. Very grateful to Goran Rihelj from Croatia's leading B2B portal, HRTurizam, for this opportunity to talk about the new Total Croatia tourism portal, which is being finalised and will be presented at a press conference in Dubrovnik on May 3.  

1. The lawsuit of the Croatian Tourist Board prompted you to launch a new portal parallel to the national tourist board?

Haha, yes, the Kings of Accidental Tourism strike again. I don't really want to talk about the lawsuits anymore, as tourism is much more interesting, but here are the links to the two lawsuits, with the replies of my excellent lawyer, Vanja Juric, for anyone interested.

/ / / Croatian National Tourist Board Sues TCN: Lawsuit 1 (50,000 Kuna)

/ / / Croatian National Tourist Board Sues TCN: Lawsuit 2 (50,000 Kuna) 

The lawsuits made me realise that there is just no point trying to work with the current broken system. Rather than try and work with CNTB, it would be quicker and a lot more fun to produce a better product myself. Totally independent and working with people I chose, while making some money. 

2. What will the page consist of? How is the whole project conceived? 

I actually started it back in late 2018 but put it on hold until about two months ago. The lawsuits arrived in October, but it was only in February when I switched Google Adsense suppliers to a new system with AI from California that my life changed. My revenues tripled, but it was the data that the new system had which blew me away. Among the many things the system gave me, it made me realise that running TCN was a labour of love and never going to make me money, but this new TC site would. 

Basically, for every 1000 visits from Croatia, I would make $1.20. If those visits came from the USA, the amount was $9.50. So how to get people from America to read my articles?

"Why don't you just finish the Total Croatia website? It is a great project, will be less work in the long run, and it sounds like it will make some nice money," suggested my wife Miranda over lunch.

Why not indeed?

I diverted resources from TCN to refresh the 86 pages we did back in 2018. The results were astonishing. Within days, we were in the top 3 spots on Google search for target keywords such as Bosnia to Croatia, Montenegro to Croatia, Zagreb Airport, Health Tourism in Croatia, Currency in Croatia. Even more interestingly, there was one 2018 article in French - How to Get from Split to Dubrovnik, which was still number 7 on Google search in France. We refreshed that and it is now number 2. Unbelievable.  

I realised I now had the tool not only to make CNTB totally irrelevant, but to take control of quality tourism information for Croatia and do it properly. I also figured out that I could copy all the articles into a French directory and translate over them. We currently have translators working in 14 languages. The English site will have 170 high-quality articles, and we will be ready to launch on Monday. And we are ranking superbly in so many languages already, including Croatian! Od Splita do Dubrovnika has us at number 4.

We will not translate everything into every language, but translate gradually to meet the specific needs. Dubrovnik will be in Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and about 15 other languages, for example, but Karlovac will not need that much. We aim to make each destination page the best and most comprehensive to hit the Internet. And we have some great writers working on the project, including Marc Rowlands (ex Guardian and Time Out Croatia), Morana Zibar and Nikola Pezic.

3. How can the private sector be involved through promotion or collaboration?

This is the fun part of the project. As the project is 100% mine and I am completely independent, I can work with anyone I want. And I love to celebrate the little guy. If you are an uhljeb, you are not welcome. But if you are a high-quality local provider, then we can discuss partnership. Basically, I am looking for one main sponsor for each destination, who will get great promo, as well as editorial input and the ability to post their offers on a daily basis in all languages if they want. We have already agreed partnership deals with Suncani Hvar in Hvar Town, Hilton Hotels in Zagreb, Savills real estate in Dubrovnik and the fabulous Adriatic Weddings Croatia on Murter, for example. And there is SO much more we can do with these partners, including some coworking projects with Tanja from Saltwater Nomads.

For the small private businesses, there will be lots of opportunity. It is time to take tourism back and put it in the hands of the quality, authentic providers. Let me tell you a story of how I signed up the first TC partner 10 days ago.

I was on Hvar and got a call asking me to be in Zagreb the next day at 13:00 to interview Mark Viduka. The 06:35 catamaran and bus would get me into the office at 14:30, so too late.

I posted on Facebook to see if anyone was driving and could take me. Within 2 minutes, a message! I am not going to Zagreb, but I will drive you there, as it means I will have 4 hours of your time. I am in tourism in Split and Stari Grad for 10 years, and I followed Total Hvar from the start.

And what a journey it was. I fell in love with Nikola from Nostress Boats. I was impressed by his passion, local knowledge and approach to customer service. He was a skipper with his own boat and mooring in Stari Grad, and had started out on his own after working with a 5-star boutique hotel on Hvar. He was looking to promote his business and thought TCN/TC would be a good place. By the team we reached Zagreb, we had agreed a deal where he will be the only boat transfer option for Stari Grad in a Page. In 10 languages. 

We are still setting everything up, but if anyone is interested in being a destination partner or in advertising, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . PLEASE write in the Subject - HRTurizam/Destination/Sector - eg HRTurizam/StariGrad/BoatTransfer. We will offer a discount on our rates for HRTurizam readers. This offer is valid until May 5, 2021. Please don't expect an immediate answer but we will get back to you. 

4. When does the project officially start?  Although the whole project is not out yet, but the site is excellently ranked on Google, the goal is to be the first choice on Google and a source of information on Croatian tourism for tourists?

We will launch with a press conference at Lazareti at 10:30 on  May 3 in Dubrovnik. I am delighted that Kresimir Macan, the brains and dynamo behind the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community (which last week won the 2021 International PR Grand PRix for Crisis Communication) will also be speaking at the press conference.

Yes that is correct. We want to be the premier (and best) source of information for tourists in not only English but also in their language - #CroatiaInYourLanguage. Everything I am doing is 100% organic. I read that the Croatian National Tourist Board had a tender for a new website for 9 million kuna. My total investment in this project will be less than 5,000 euro - the project will generate the rest of the money needed. And I have already got that money back from early bird advertisers. Thanks to the wonderful PR from the Kings with their lawsuits, we have already generated more sales than the value of the lawsuits. So huge thanks!

Although the site is not yet complete, the site is made for search, and we have been sharing various articles over the last two months. The biggest early interest has come from Poland, with more than 15,000 unique visits to the 6 articles the fabulous Sabina has translated so far. The Polish version of my expat overview of living in Croatia has had over 8,000 visits already. The English version of this article has also been very popular. 

We plan to be on the first page of Google for every page in English by the summer, as well as for many foreign language pages. That is what I mean by taking control of quality tourism information for Croatia. And we will thereby show just how irrelevant the Croatian National Tourist Board really is. And if you are not an uhljeb, you are welcome to join us.

If you would like to partner with the new TC project with your Croatian tourism business, please contact us on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

The site is still being finalised, but you can check out progress here.

April the 27th, 2021 - Zagreb County horse riding is a perfect way to see some of the beautiful rolling green hills and other areas of the countryside in the City of Zagreb's vicinity, and a brand new almost 100 kilometre trail for precisely that has been presented.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes, strengthening continental and rural Croatian tourism through 85 kilometres of trails for experienced horse riders, as well as for for beginners is part of a plan that will enrich the tourist offer of Zagreb County.

The beautiful nature located a mere stone's throw from the capital will now be able to be enjoyed by keen and experienced horse riders and all those who want to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life, as was explained the mayor of Orle, Ervin Vujica, who emphasised the fact that the Zagreb County horse riding opportunities are very close to the heart of the capital and that the municipality of Orle is now set to become the first in this part of Croatia with marked trails of this type.

On Sunday, May the 2nd, 2021, the grand opening of the first and longest trail (23 kilometres) will be held, realised in cooperation with the Miklin Equestrian Centre, which has existed and been in operation for about 30 years now.

“Our equestrian centre has been gathering lovers of these noble animals for many years and it provides them with the experience of riding in almost untouched nature. We're looking forward to embarking on this new project in cooperation with the Municipality. When creating the Zagreb County horse riding trails, we rode more than 203 kilometres and chose 85 kilometres of different trails, each of which carries a special experience, some are intended for experienced riders and some are for beginners, and the natural environment is diverse,'' explained the owner of the Equestrian Centre, Ivan Miklin.

Vujica explained that the focus of the Zagreb County horse riding trails lies primarily on rural development, which means in the near future, the opening of accommodation facilities for all visitors and providing the highest quality gastronomic offer from local family farms will take place. 

He also added that this is one in a series of development projects in the municipality of Orle to contribute to the tourist offer of the entire county. One of the initiators of the project, Zeljko Matejcic, pointed out that these Zagreb County horse riding trails located in the municipality of Orle will attract horse lovers from all over Croatia, as well as from the rest of Europe.

For more, make sure to follow our travel page. For all you need to know about Zagreb in 2021, bookmark Zagreb in a Page.

April the 26th, 2021 - Croatian MEPs are acting as the voice of those Croatian counties which have fared better in the epidemiological sense throughout the coronavirus crisis, warning that they mustn't be made victims of worse off counties during the upcoming tourist season this summer.

As Novac/Ljubica Vuko writes, on Friday, the Office of the European Parliament in Croatia organised an online conference on the digital future of Europe and current events from the work of the European Parliament, which were discussed by Croatian MEPs Karlo Ressler (HDZ, EPP) and Valter Flego (IDS, Renew Europe).

Speaking about current events in the work of the European Parliament, the aforementioned Croatian MEPs pointed out the initiatives they've launched in order to better prepare for the 2021 Croatian tourist season in the current circumstances which are still very heavily dominated by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Valter Flego stated that he had sent a letter with 24 signatures to the European Commission and the Council to mark Croatia differently on the European map by the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC). This same initiative was signed by 9 of the 12 Croatian MEPs.

''The travel measures/rules to a country are determined in relation to the epidemiological situation in that country at any given time. At the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I started with the initiative stating how dissatisfied we are with how Croatia is being marked on the European map. We don't think it's fair that it's been divided into statistical regions because in that way, the entire Adriatic coast is one area, one colour, and that map fails to show the real epidemiological situation all over our coast. This is an injustice that I set out to explain to the Committee when we discussed tourist season preparations and during the Renew Group preparatory meeting. We came up with the idea to collect signatures and I offered it first to my colleagues from my group, then to members of the Croatian delegation, besides me, nine others signed it, I want to thank everyone, first of all Mr. Ressler who got involved with this,'' said Flego.

He emphasised that the aim of the initiative launched towards the European Commission and the Council was to have this issue rectified as a matter of urgency.

''It's important that the epidemiological situation is viewed in relation to Croatian counties, and not in relation to statistical regions,'' warned Valter Flego.

Members of the HDZ Delegation to the European Parliament also sent a parliamentary question to the European Commission on Wednesday on the topic of a regional approach to labeling epidemiological travel risks.

''Some counties are better off than others, some are worse. It's important that those counties that are more favourable epidemiologically aren't deprived of anything and aren't viewed together as part of Adriatic Croatia, ie through the NUTS2 division. The Ministry of Tourism also has a role to play in explaining the situation as it actually is and the differences between the counties, and to show that there are large parts of Croatia where it's more than safe to come on holiday,'' said Karlo Ressler.

Walter Flego said that he had also launched another initiative, concerning digital green certificates, the introduction of which was initiated by the European Commission in order to facilitate free and safe movement at the European Union level.

''The topic about green certificates or as some would say covid passports is very hot at the minute, and it's wrong to refer to them as the latter because they aren't passports. All initiatives around green certificates are welcome as they will speed up travel, but it's very important to determine just will pay the cost of testing for those people who haven't yet been vaccinated and those who have recovered from coronavirus. That's why I've taken the initiative to the European Commission because I believe that testing should be free, as is vaccination. If we don't want discrimination in these certificates, and we truly do not want that, then the testing procedure should also be free,'' Flego pointed out.

Karlo Ressler said the crux of the problem is that we're facing another uncertain tourist season, much like that of 2020.

''Last year, unlike some other countries which rely heavily on tourism, Croatia achieved relatively good results, but not when compared to the best tourist years. I have no fear of these digital certificates restricting freedoms, they'll actually work to increase mobility. My fear is that this mechanism won't be effective enough to make a big difference, which is why I think it is important, once the European Parliament adopts its opinion next week, for us to negotiate with the Council and make that document really make a difference and facilitate mobility for people ahead of the tourist season in summer,'' Ressler said.

For more, make sure to follow our politics section.

April the 25th, 2021 - Dubrovnik tourism employees begin getting vaccinated against the novel coronavirus as the city attempts to obtain some form of security for the upcoming 2021 tourist season this summer.

Croatia's tourism Mecca, the Medieval walled city of Dubrovnik and the country's southernmost city, relies very heavily on air traffic partially owing to the fact that it is effectively cut off from the rest of the country by the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina at Neum, the neighbouring country's only piece of coastline.

While this usually doesn't pose that much of an issue as it can typically be crossed quickly with some exceptions during the height of the summer season, the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, and the lack of air traffic to Dubrovnik from other European countries which have banned unnecessary travel, such as the United Kingdom, has dealt a heavy blow to the city which once rested very firmly on its laurels.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, the vaccination of Dubrovnik tourism employees began recently, and it was accompanied by the Minister of Tourism Nikolina Brnjac who was there on a working visit. The Minister and the Prefect of Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Nikola Dobroslavic, visited the point of organised vaccination in the sports hall in Gospino polje.

"Thanks to our Dubrovnik tourism employees who responded to the organised vaccination invitation, this is an extremely important message being sent out from the tourism sector to foreign guests who are planning to come to Croatia this year. We're seriously preparing all the conditions to have the safest and most successful tourist year. I encourage and invite tourist workers to get vaccinated, from May the 1st we'll receive 230,000 doses of vaccine per week, the amount of vaccine will be enough to optimally prepare for the season,'' said Minister Nikolina Brnjac.

After Dubrovnik, in accordance with the priorities and national vaccination plan, the vaccination of tourism employees will begin in all other tourist destinations across the Republic of Croatia, and the exact order of priority vaccination by counties will be determined by the Croatian Institute of Public Health. The Ministry of Tourism plans to organise vaccinations for all seasonal workers as well, if necessary, as well as for providers of household accommodation services after the vaccination of employees in larger companies is completed, where there are higher risks of spreading the infection.

In addition to providing priority vaccination for Dubrovnik tourism employees and of course other such workers across the country, additional points for testing guests for the novel coronavirus in tourist destinations are currently being set up, antigen tests for tourists will be co-financed, and while people with a reason or with residence in Croatia were always able to arrive in the country, Croatia has been open to tourists coming from third countries such as the USA and Russia since back at the beginning of April.

For more on coronavirus specific to Croatia, from travel, border and quarantine rules to the locations of vaccination points and testing centres across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section.