ZAGREB, Aug 20, 2020 - Despite everything, Croatia is having a good tourism season this year, and we are doing our best to ensure its continuation, including constant communication with partners on foreign markets on a safe stay and the epidemiological situation, Tourism Minister Nikolina Brnjac said on Thursday.

"Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, forecasts for this tourism year indicated a fall in tourism turnover of up to 70%, nevertheless, better results have been recorded and by mid-August 52% of last year's bed nights were generated, noting that for three months, March, April, and May and even the start of June, there was no turnover at all," said the minister.

She added that in July, 62% of bed nights were generated compared to July 2019 and 69% to date in August.

Since the start of the year, 6.2 million visitors were recorded in Croatia and 41.6 million bed nights. Currently, there are about 700,000 holidaymakers in Croatia and in addition to local guests the majority of tourists are from Germany (177K), Slovenia (80K), Poland (73K), Czech Republic (54K) and Italy (32K), she said.

675,000 tourists in Croatia per day on average since reopening of borders

Since Croatia opened its border there have been 675,000 tourists in Croatia per day on average with the maximum number in one day of 850,000 being recorded in the first week of August.

The best results have been achieved by family-run farms and holiday houses, achieving 80% of last year's turnover, followed by nautical tourism with a turnover of 70% y-o-y and boat charter generating a turnover of 60% on the year as they provide accommodation with the possibility of keeping a distance.

"A record number of mega yachts have sailed into Croatia this year, about 200, and thanks to being well prepared and adapting, hotels and camps have achieved excellent results particularly now in August generating 55% of last year's turnover, and current capacity utilisation is about 70 to 80 percent," Brnjac explained.

She reiterated that she was in constant contact with the relevant bodies abroad and was monitoring trends in countries where tourists are coming from.

"I believe that our international partners will recognise our measures and activities and take them into account before making any decisions, while Croatia will continue to do everything so that those international institutions have precise information based on which they will decide which countries to include on lists of safe destinations," she said.

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ZAGREB, Aug 20, 2020 - The Croatian National Tourism Board director, Kristjan Stanicic on Thursday said that decisions to put Croatia on lists of unsafe countries for travel would certainly affect tourism turnover.

The German foreign ministry on Thursday issued a warning against travelling to Sibenik-Knin and Split-Dalmatia counties because of the increasing number of new coronavirus infections. "Unnecessary travel such as for tourism to these areas is not recommended," the ministry said.

Commenting on the decision to Hina, Stanicic said that the fact that Germany had not declared all of Croatia as unsafe was "a mitigating circumstance."

"We know how important the German market is for Croatia's tourism from which we have generated 3.6 million bed nights in August thus far, which in the current circumstances is an excellent 93% of last year's results. As such, I once again appeal for everyone to adhere to the prescribed epidemiological measures because at the moment that is the fundamental precondition to continue achieving tourism turnover in the country," Stanicic said.

Putting Croatia on the red list in the UK will change travel plans to Croatia

Commenting on the latest announcement from the United Kingdom that Croatia could be put on the red list of countries due to allegedly imported cases of the infection, Stanicic said that it could potentially mean British tourists leaving earlier or changing their plans to travel to Croatia.

"The United Kingdom is one of the more important markets for Croatia's tourism and the Covid-19 pandemic has negatively affected arrivals. In circumstances when until mid-June it was almost impossible to travel anywhere in Europe and with the exceptionally strong contraction of air transport, the British market did not result in any strong activation. Hence, since the start of the year until now we have had about 97,000 arrivals and 483,000 bed nights from that market, which is about 16% of last year's turnover and the arrivals from the UK rank 12th among foreign tourists," Stanicic explained.

The director of the HTZ branch in Great Britain, Daria Reic, has informed that interest by British visitors for Croatia is still strong and partners are informing of good occupancy rates in planes.

"We are receiving a lot of calls from potential passengers enquiring about the current situation in Croatia and our partners are informing us of very good bookings for the remainder of August and September," Reic revealed.

She said that Brits are by no means happy with their government's decision, adding that the general opinion in public is that no one wants to go into 14-day quarantine.

Currently, 17,000 Brits are spending holidays in Croatia

If the government does indeed make such a decision there could be a drastic drop in tourists while Stanicic said that currently there are about 17,000 Brits in Croatia with about 56% in rooms and apartments, 29% in hotels, 7% in nautical accommodation, 5% in camps and 3% in non-commercial facilities.

Most of them are vacationing in Dubrovnik, Split, Konavle, Hvar, and Pula.

We are doing our utmost to precisely inform foreigners in the UK and elsewhere

Both Reic and Stanicic underscore that the HTZ is cooperating with diplomatic representations in the UK and elsewhere in the world to provide accurate information based on which they can then decide on including countries on the list of risky or safe countries.

"Unfortunately, we cannot impact a final decision and apart from the epidemiological situation, their decisions take into account the economic interests of each individual country. That is particularly obvious in the fact that some countries have declared us to be a risky destination (Slovenia, Austria, Italy) while others consider us to be a safe tourist destination and their tourists are enjoying their vacation in Croatia (Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and so on)," said Stanicic.

"We will continue to promote Croatia as a safe and stable tourist destination, particularly through online channels and we have launched an initiative for some local tourism boards and companies to organise testing in their areas for all interested tourists so they can continue their vacation undisturbed," he concluded.

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ZAGREB, Aug 17, 2020 - Croatia's Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic, who is at the helm of the national COVID response team, said on Sunday that he had no concerns over the continuation of the tourist season following travel warnings from some countries.

"I am not concerned over the remainder of the tourist season. There are currently 760,000 tourists in Croatia. In the course of the day, tens of thousands from EU member-states have entered Croatia," Bozinovic told the NOVA TV commercial broadcaster on Sunday evening.

A few days ago Italy and Austria decided to add Croatia to their lists of high-risk COVID countries.

The Croatian minister admitted that it would have been better, if such decisions had not been made, however, he added that Croatia would continue doing its best to make sure that the struggle against the coronavirus infection is efficient and that the tourist postseason is good.

Bozinovic says every country makes decisions it deems appropriate.

Since the start of the tourist season, there has existed some kind of contraposition of interests: on one hand, countries do not want their nationals to travel abroad and there spend their money, and on the other hand tourist destinations such as Croatia would like to attract as many guests as possible.

He said that there were some indications that tourists would continue visiting Croatia.

Asked whether Croatia would respond to Austria after it imposed the obligatory tests for arrivals from our country, Bozinovic said that "Croatia does not think that way."

"We are focused primarily on our interests."

We are trying to use our potentials and capacities to make sure that the favourable developments continue, the minister said.

As for Slovenia which is mulling some restrictions on arrivals from Croatia, he said that Zagreb is in permanent contact with Slovenia's authorities, and that it remained to be seen on Monday what would happen.

Slovenia to decide on possible restrictions on arrivals from Croatia on Thursday

In the meantime, the Slovenian government's spokesman said that they would decide on possible restrictions on Thursday. On Tuesday we will see the results of tests made on Monday and if there are no changes in the work on nightclubs (in Croatia), we will must respond in some way, Jelko Kacin said on Sunday evening.

ZAGREB, Aug 16, 2020 - Austria braces for traffic jams on motorways and at border crossings on Sunday, as travellers are expected to shorten their holidays after Vienna put Croatia on the list of high-risk countries due to a resurgence of COVID cases.

On Saturday, the Austrian Automobile Club (ÖAMTC) stated that it expected that traffic from the south to intensify in the evening on Saturday evening and during Sunday.

According to some figures, there are currently 3,000 Austrians vacationing in Croatia. However, Vienna believes that there are many more people from Austria who are spending their summer holidays in Croatia.

The Austrian government decided to include Croatia on the list of high-risk countries on Friday after Croatia reported a record highly number of COVID cases in a day.

As of Monday, 17 August, travellers returning from Croatia must show a current negative test for coronavirus or undergo testing within 48 hours.

This would obviously prompt some of those holiday-makers to shorten their stay in Croatia.

ZAGREB, Aug 15, 2020 - The Croatian Tourism Association (HUT) has warned that giving up on the tourist season in the current economic situation due to recommendations by some neighbouring countries restricting travel to Croatia would be irresponsible towards the tourism sector and citizens. 

"The foundation of this year's season has been a good epidemiological situation, and in the month and a half that we have had a favourable epidemiological situation across the country, we have shown that we can be winners in the Mediterranean," HUT director Veljo Ostojic told Hina on Saturday.

Statements that can be heard lately about the need to give up on the tourist season because of the imminent start of the new school year "are simply unacceptable to the tourist sector," said Ostojic.

"Giving up on the tourist season in the current economic situation would be irresponsible, not only towards those who work in that sector, which generates around 20% of Croatia's GDP but to all citizens. We believe that urgent action is needed to communicate facts through all available channels and to adopt measures to reduce the number of new infections," Ostojic said.

He noted that the situation in Istria and Primorje-Gorski Kotar counties is still more favourable than in many European countries, including the countries which generate the most tourist arrivals in Croatia.

"That fact should be constantly stressed in our communication with those key markets, including through diplomatic channels and the media," he said.

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ZAGREB, Aug 10, 2020 - The head of the Croatian Public Health Institute (HZJZ), Krunoslav Capak, has said that the epidemiological situation in the country is favourable despite a large number of tourists vacationing in Croatia.

"It is unrealistic to expect that there will be no infected tourists but the figures are excellent considering the fact that currently there are close to 900,000 guests in the country," Capak said in an interview with the N1 broadcaster on Monday.

Commenting on foreign media reports about some tourists becoming infected while holidaying in Croatia, he said that Croatia was part of the Early Warning and Response System through which member-countries communicated about such cases.

He stressed that Croatia was aware of the cases of which it had been officially notified.

"We have received several reports from the health authorities of Germany, Italy, Austria, and Slovenia about tourists having contracted the disease here," he said, stressing that the biggest problem currently were night clubs.

Capak also said that the national COVID-19 response team would most probably grant Dubrovnik Mayor Mato Frankovic's request for amending the regulation on the docking of cruise ships in the Dubrovnik port, which now bans the arrival of cruise vessels with more than 200 passengers, because of the Italian MSC company which wants to bring tourists to Dubrovnik.

ZAGREB, Aug 1, 2020 - According to the eVisitor tourist check-in and check-out system, Croatia recorded 2.44 million tourist arrivals and 18.60 million overnight stays in July, which are respective increases of 53% and 61% compared with July last year.

The figures cover tourists staying in commercial and non-commercial accommodation as well as the nautical charter, the Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ) said.

Foreign tourists generated 2.13 million arrivals (50% of the result recorded in July 2019) and 15.70 million overnight stays (58% of the result of July last year), while domestic tourists generated 325,000 arrivals (91% of the arrivals recorded in July 2019) and 2.90 million overnight stays (81% of the overnight stays recorded in July 2019).

The largest number of overnight stays was generated by German tourists (4.43 million overnight stays, or 87% of the overnight stays they generated in July 2019), ahead of Slovenians (3.44 million; 88%), Croatians (2.90 million; 81%), Poles (1.60 million; 79%), and Czechs (1.42 million; 72%).

According to the number of overnight stays, the leading destinations in July were Vir (711,000), Rovinj (619,000), Medulin (553,000), Novalja (486,000) and Mali Losinj (475,000).

About 780,000 tourists are currently staying in Croatia, including 200,000 Germans, 135,000 Slovenians, 130,000 Croatians, 74,000 Poles and 46,000 Czechs. Most of them are staying in Vir, Rovinj, Medulin, Crikvenica and Porec.

In the first seven months of this year, Croatia recorded 4.11 million tourist arrivals and 26.34 million overnight stays.

"Considering the circumstances, these are excellent results and a good announcement for August. We will intensify promotional activities in Germany, Austria, Great Britain and Italy, which are very important markets for our tourist industry where Croatia is listed as a safe country," HTZ director Kristjan Stanicic said.

He stressed the importance of compliance with epidemiological measures so that Croatia would keep its status as a safe tourist destination and make the most of this year's tourist season.

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 tourist trade is evident in the statistics showing that on 1 June 2019, there were 315,000 guests registered by the e-Visitor system and currently 10 times fewer guests are in the country.

The gradual reduction of restrictive measures and the fact that some central and eastern European countries open up their borders have led to the gradual strengthening of the tourist trade, according to the comment made by the Croatian Tourism Board director Kristjan Stanicic.

Also, 6% of the total number of tourists arrive in Croatia by bus, and most of them are Czechs, Slovaks, Serbians, and Poles, and this mode of transportation will enable speedy restoration of the tourist routes.