December 30, 2022 - This year, many Croatian cities gave up fireworks for the New Year celebration, including Rijeka, Osijek, Varaždin, Pula, Rovinj, Labin, Čazma, Cres, Mali Lošinj, Opatija, Poreč, Samobor, Zabok. The Zagreb New Year celebrations will join the praise-worthy initiative to support the health and wellness of pets and animals by using alternative means of spreading cheer and joy.

As Poslovni writes, Zagreb is joining the list of cities without fireworks on New Year's Eve, after all. Instead, the people of Zagreb will welcome the New Year with colourful confetti, visual effects, and a rich musical program, as announced by the Mayor's Office on Thursday.

The City of Zagreb decided to join the initiative of several cities in Croatia, including Rijeka, Osijek, Pula, Zabok, Rovinj, Opatija, Poreč, Čazma, Samobor, and Labin, and gave up the New Year's Eve fireworks organised by the City. Instead, the citizens will welcome the New Year with colourful confetti, visual effects, and a rich musical program at the Ban Josip Jelačić Square.

"Even though we had already communicated that we would proceed with the New Year's fireworks because they were already contracted, we still managed to find another solution this week, thanks to the understanding shown by the contracted company," the statement said.

The New Year's Eve program starts at Ban Josip Jelačić Square on December 31 at 7 p.m., with a warm-up with DJ Kiki B., and at 9:15 p.m. young talents of Croatian music, some of the performers from the popular music shows The Voice and A Strana. The famous band Pips, Chips & Videoclips will perform from 11 p.m. until after midnight, and after midnight, Nipplepeople will take the stage.

On New Year's Eve, Mayor Tomislav Tomašević will visit the on-call services, which include the shelter for the homeless, emergency services, firefighters, and the police, and celebrate the New Year with fellow citizens at Ban Jelačić Square.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated Lifestyle section.

January the 7th, 2021 - Despite the fact that Croatia's current coronavirus measures prohibit the entry of foreign nationals unless they hold lawful residence in Croatia or can prove that they have pressing personal, family or economic reasons to be here, there are still foreign guests in the country. Croatian hotels, however, recorded far more Croatian guests than they did foreigners over the New Year period.

As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, although the epidemiological profession urged Croatian hotels to refrain from any New Year programmes due to the increase in the number of people infected with coronavirus, there were still Croatian hotels that, primarily symbolically, rang in 2021.

According to data from eVisitor, a total of 5,249 guests stayed in Croatian hotels on New Year's Eve, ten times less than on the previous New Year's Eve, with a significantly different structure of guests than last year.

Namely, while at last year's celebrations there were three times more foreign guests than there were Croatian ones, this time, there were more than six times more Croatian guests than foreigners staying in Croatian hotels.

Nevertheless, domestic tourist traffic was two thirds lower in terms of overnight stays than it was on New Year's Eve previously, with 4,556 overnight stays recorded, while 693 foreign guests were accommodated in Croatian hotels across the country at the turn of the year.

However, only a handful of Croatian hotels were actually open for the New Year, which in normal years is mostly dominated by hotels in Zagreb, Kvarner and Istria. Only 193 hotel facilities out of about 1,200 recorded overnight stays on New Year's Eve, and they recorded an average of about 21 percent occupancy.

Despite the above, there were exceptions in terms of occupancy, and full occupancy, according to eVisitor, was recorded by one facility in Buje and one facility in Karlovac County, but the Croatian Tourist Board isn't revealing which hotels are in question. Otherwise, 7270 guests were recorded as having stayed in private accommodation facilities on New Year's Eve.

Although a number of Croatian hotels announced back during October that they intended to organise a New Year's Eve party with live music and dancing, their plans soon failed with the deteriorating epidemiological situation and the introduction of new anti-epidemic measures.

Although they didn't actually specifically include the closure of Croatian hotels and hotel restaurants, the maximum number of outdoor and indoor gatherings was cut, and in the meantime, passes between counties were introduced one again, although it was possible to travel with confirmation of having previously booked accommodation. Meanwhile, passes after the recent Petrinja earthquake were lifted, but there are question marks surrounding just how much that affected traffic in this regard.

After the appeal of epidemiologists, Croatian hotels certainly gave up on the idea of live music and similar ideas in the meantime, and the celebrations surrounding the ringing in of the New Year was reduced enormously.

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Croatia welcomed in 2017 at midnight with celebrations across the country. The cities were full, the celebrations were large, and not only Croatian’s took part in the holiday fun.