ZAGREB, Aug 31, 2020-  A measure that was introduced to stop the enforcement of money debts, thus unblocking debtors' accounts, expires on October 18 and the Financial Agency will again start enforcing debt payments from citizens' accounts who have not settled their debts, the Jutarnji List daily reported on Monday.

The government will definitely not extend the suspension of enforcement procedures which means that a real tsunami of enforcement procedures can be expected in October and November, the daily writes.

According to information from public notary circles, about 400,000 citizens could have their accounts blocked overnight. With the record fall in GDP in the second quarter of 15.1%, an expected loss of jobs, which in the tourism sector alone could be more than 60,000, Croatia is just one step away from a very black autumn scenario.

Some sources in the government have said that the measures to help the commercial sector and citizens that were introduced cannot be extended, but that the government is not neglecting the social component. Scenarios are being prepared for an as painless transition as possible from the complete suspension of enforcement procedures to their reintroduction.

The only option that could help citizens and that would not stint creditors too much would be to allow debt repayments in installments.

The civic rights department in the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration has already prepared a draft document to present to the chamber of public notaries, the daily writes.

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ZAGREB, Aug 31, 2020 - This year so far campsites have recorded 7.7 million nights or 51% of last year's results and although there are still tourists and many planned to stay open until October, most could close earlier due to tighter coronavirus restrictions in the main markets, according to the Croatian Camping Union (KUH).

KUH director Adriano Palman has told Hina's initial forecasts indicated that 2020 would see about 30% of last year's results. He recalls that most of them opened between May 15 and June 15 as borders were reopened.

At the moment, most of the tourists are from Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

Palman says "it's impossible to forecast" what the situation in September will be and that it will primarily depend on the number of coronavirus infections in all relevant countries and Croatia.

Campsites in Istria, Primorje-Gorski Kotar, and Zadar countries have recorded 82% of this year's nights, he adds.

So far, campsites in Istria have recorded 3.6 million nights or 46% of last year's figure. Campsites in Lika-Senj County have recorded 62% of last year's nights, followed by Zadar County (60%) and Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (56%).

Palman says campsites in the southernmost Dubrovnik-Neretva County, although the furthest from the main markets have recorded 53% of last year's nights.

This year has seen a higher demand for mini camps, which have recorded 90% of last year's nights, although they account for only 4% of total campsite nights, he says, adding that four and five-star campsites, the most expensive ones, account for 52% of this year's nights.

This year so far, German, Slovenian and Austrian campers have generated 71% of all campsite nights. Polish and Czech tourists rank fourth and fifth, having generated 65% of last year's nights.

Palman says revenue is likely to be well below 50% of last year's figures and that campsites expect the adoption of new aid measures to avoid restructuring and retain jobs.

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ZAGREB, Aug 26, 2020- There are now some 500,000 tourists in Croatia and if the epidemiological situation remains stable and everyone complies with recommendations, we can certainly expect another two months of tourism turnover this year, the National Tourist Board (HTZ) director, Kristjan Stanicic, said on Wednesday.

Stanicic met with representatives of Lika-Senj and Karlovac county tourist board representatives at Plitvice Lakes.

Lika-Senj county tourism board director Ivan Radosevic assesses that tourist trade in that county is very good compared to initial forecasts, saying that "August has brought an excellent 67% of last August's results, and year to date we have stood at 54% of last year's levels."

Currently, there are visitors in that county from Germany, Croatia, and Poland and the situation is similar in Karlovac County with the local tourist board's director Dina Begic saying that currently, the county is generating about 30% of last year's turnover.

They both underscored that this year the number of local guests has increased and account for 30% of tourism turnover.

Stanicic recalled measures from May until now which enabled tourism turnover, including a focus on marketing and information campaigns conducted on key European markets where the majority of holidaymakers come from.

Considering everything, Stanicic is exceptionally satisfied with the summer part of the tourism year and with that in August alone when 67% of last year's August turnover was achieved.

He announced a campaign for the shoulder season with emphasis on continental tourism, nautical and gastronomic tourism focusing on the closest markets.

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ZAGREB, Aug 24, 2020 - Minister Nikolina Brnjac on Monday stated that the tourism sector was well prepared for the situation caused by the coronavirus and that the good tourism results, and government and crisis response team's measures had resulted in Croatia being recognized as a safe destination.

Commenting on claims by stakeholders in the tourism sector that it is going to take two to three years for tourism to get back to 2019's levels, Minister Brnjac said after meeting with representatives of the hotel industry, that it was of exceptional importance to "strategically think of further steps so that we can establish a sustainable and resilient system."

It is essential that everyone behaves responsibly and adheres to the recommended measures so that the positive trend in arrivals can continue this season and in that way, set the preconditions to maintain safety in the years to come, she said.

"The 2019 tourism season was above average in everything but the number of arrivals does not mean revenue too. That is why a tourism development strategy is important because it is important to know where we are going, what our objective is, and how to develop Croatia's tourism in the future. This situation with COVID is extraordinary. The tourism sector was exceptionally well prepared and the good results we have in fact, along with the government's measures which saved jobs and the measures by the Civil Protection Authority, have resulted in Croatia being recognized as a safe destination," the tourism minister underlined.

She explained that several ministries were in contact with those countries that have put Croatia on the quarantine list to ask that Croatia be treated according to the current developments in counties as the situation is not the same throughout the country.

"Hence, based on the epidemiological circumstances that will occur we expect other countries to review their lists. We have the biggest number of guests from Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, and considering that we are a car destination, thanks to the Tourist Board's good promotion, we used our advantage and good road network," she concluded.

Director of the Croatian Tourism Association (HUT) Veljko Ostojic said that if the support measures had not been issued in March, the tourism season would definitely not be as it is because "employers would have been forced to lay off a significant number of workers and without workers there cannot be any tourism." 

We need information about job retention measures...because employers have to make certain decisions. It is also important to secure liquidity for the next tourism season and today we talked about the possibility of using EU funds, he said.

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ZAGREB, Aug 24, 2020 - A total of 2.3 million tourists vacationed in Croatia in the period from 1 to 23 August, generating 17.6 million overnight stays, which is at 67% of the results in the same period of 2019, officials of the Croatian Tourism Board (HTZ) said on Monday.

The latest statistics, which are based on information from the eVisitor system and which include tourist turnover in commercial and non-commercial accommodation as well as in boat rental, show that in the first 23 days of August there were 4.3 million overnight stays in Istria and 3.5 million in the region of Kvarner.

Split-Dalmatia County follows with 3.4 million overnight stays, followed by Zadar County with 3.2 million overnight stays, Sibenik-Knin County with 1.4 million, Dubrovnik-Neretva County with one million and Lika-Senj County with 636,000 overnight stays.

HTZ director Kristjan Stanicic said that the results for August were excellent and that the HTZ had very good announcements for September from the countries which had not put Croatia on a list of epidemiologically unsafe countries.

Between the start of this year and August 23, 6.5 million tourists vacationed in Croatia, generating more than 44 million overnight stays, which is 53% of tourism figures in the same period of 2019, the HTZ said.

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ZAGREB, Aug 24, 2020- Tourism and Sports Minister Nikolina Brnjac said on Sunday that she was satisfied with this year's tourist season, with tourist turnover standing at 50% of last year's turnover, or 20% more than expected. 

"According to our projections as well as those of the World Tourism Organisation, we should have been at 30% of last year's result. But we are currently at 50% and realistically speaking, we can be satisfied with those figures," Brnjac told reporters in the Istrian town of Barban, where she attended a local equestrian tournament.

She noted that neighboring countries and other Mediterranean countries had seen a drop in tourist turnover of 70-80%.

Brnjac went on to say that all countries, including those that have put Croatia on the list of epidemiologically unsafe countries, followed the epidemiological situation, and revised their measures every two weeks.

"Epidemiological measures need to be maintained so that the good figures we have had until now could continue. But we must be aware of the fact that in March, April, May and the first half of June we did not have the kind of tourist season we had expected," Brnjac said, adding that she expected good tourism results to continue in September.

"We expect the season to continue, it is not over, but only if we have good epidemiological measures in place and good weather," she said, adding that the epidemiological situation in Istria and Primorje-Gorski Kotar counties was very good, which was why they were having good results.

Asked how one should prepare for 2021, which would not be an easy year, Brnjac said that it was of the utmost importance to preserve jobs and stability in the tourist sector.

"Tourism has always been a branch of economy where the situation changes quickly and which adapts to those changes quickly. Making sure Croatia is recognizable as a safe destination that takes care of its guests, along with the continuation of good results, is what gives us the impetus for next year," Brnjac said.

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ZAGREB, Aug 23, 2020 - While British tourists are leaving Croatia from Zemunik Airport near Zadar, new guests from Great Britain are arriving at Cilipi Airport at Dubrovnik despite the fact that the UK has put Croatia on a list of epidemiologically unsafe countries, the Vecernji List daily reports on Sunday.

According to the eVisitor system for the registration of guests, there were 670,000 tourists in Croatia on Friday, including 12,000 Austrians, 70,000 Slovenians and 15,500 Britons. Of the total number, 120,000 were domestic guests.

Two planes with 120 British nationals landed at Dubrovnik on Friday despite the UK's having put Croatia on its red list of epidemiologically unsafe countries and giving its nationals until Saturday to return home if they want to avoid quarantine.

"It is encouraging that despite that decision, Britons continue arriving in Dubrovnik. One of the reasons is that many work from home and no not mind quarantine. I hope that in the next few days we will manage to agree with the UK for it to switch from quarantine to a negative coronavirus test. London Airport can test 16,000 people daily and the City of Dubrovnik would cover the cost of testing, which amounts to £50 per test," Mayor Mato Frankovic, who in recent days has stepped up a campaign to attract British guests and help maintain flights from the UK to Dubrovnik.

Most of the tourists in Croatia are staying in Istria, Kvarner and Split-Dalmatia and Zadar counties.

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ZAGREB, Aug 21, 2020 - The head of the national COVID-19 response team, Davor Bozinovic, said on Friday that decisions regarding the coronavirus epidemic were not political decisions.

"Tourism is an important economic sector in Croatia, however, we opened up based on scientific data about the virus not being so dangerous in the summertime, as evidenced by the latest clinical symptoms in patients. The assessment that it is possible to open up was an epidemiological one," Bozinovic told reporters when asked to comment on Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic's statement that the decision on the tourist season was a political one and to say which other decisions were political.

Asked why the situation was problematic in Split-Dalmatia County, where earlier in the day 103 new cases of the COVID-19 disease were reported, Bozinovic said that there were more than 800,000 people in the county at present, that its towns and communities have much fewer residents in the winter, and that a large number of people from neighboring countries were staying there.

Commenting on scientist Ivan Djikic's statement that it had been wrong to allow night clubs to operate, Bozinovic said that the COVID-19 response team had adopted the necessary measures, carried out controls, and when cases of infection were detected, it banned night clubs from working after midnight.

The measures imposed by the team resulted in a drop in new infections, he said.

Bozinovic also said that they were not worried about reports that a Facebook initiative would file a class-action lawsuit against the COVID-19 response team and that its objective was to maintain a balance.

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July 24, 2020 - Croatia first in the world to use contactless card payment technology (NFC) for online customer reviews, a game-changer for business globally

In the modern era, there's no better promotion for your business than online customer reviews. Comments and ratings on platforms like Trip Advisor, Google and Facebook have replaced slow and unreliable word-of-mouth recommendations in the digital age.

But, how to get those reviews? A huge proportion of goodwill from satisfied customers is lost forever the moment they step out of the door. They can forget every detail of your business, their experience or maybe they just don't find the time.

Review Booster Pro, an innovative platform from Dubrovnik, offers the best solution yet. It uses NFC – the same technology used by credit cards for contactless payments – to facilitate on-the-spot online customer reviews in super-fast time. It's a simple solution that could be a game-changer for business globally.

“I'm the CEO and owner of the Mint Media digital agency,” explains Ivan Ivušić who has developed Review Booster Pro.”We work with a lot of clients in the tourism sector. Over the past few years, we got a lot of requests from clients about how to improve their online reputation. Their main concern was how to improve their ratings and increase their number of reviews of Trip Advisor, Google, Facebook and other platforms, in order to get more visibility and more customers.”

“We tried many different solutions; business cards with QR codes, something you scan with your mobile phone which would take you to a web page where you write reviews. But, the main problem was the speed. Once customers leave a venue, they don't find the time to write reviews or they don't remember the name of your business. So, the conversion rates were low. So, we needed something quick and simple, so customers can leave reviews on the spot. This is what the market needs.”

Their solution was to employ NFC - Near Field Communication, the technology you use to pay contactless with your credit card. All newer mobile phones are fitted with this technology. Businesses signed up to Review Booster Pro have RBP boards, which they present to customers after their experience – for instance, while you're waiting for your restaurant bill. You simply wave you phone over the board, the phone's operating system reads the chip, your web browser opens automatically and takes you to the RBP landing page of the business you're in. You then select which of the platforms you're already signed up to - Trip Advisor, Google, Facebook etc. - and leave your online customer reviews.


© Review Booster Pro

“The RBP boards are around the size of a large mobile phone – and these can be presented to the customer or even positioned permanently on every table in your bar or restaurant; hotels, dentists, hair and cosmetic salons, retail stores, tourist guides and agencies are also some of our clients,” explains Ivan. Aside from encouraging simple and super fast reviews, businesses using the RBP platform obtain other benefits. On their RBP landing page, where they can place their branded logo and individual text, they can also use banner advertising space to promote existing partners or market different sections of their business. For instance, while a customer is leaving a review of the hotel bar, they will be shown the details of what's on offer in the hotel's spa.

Business owners can measure the clicks on each individual board they have. Therefore, a restaurant owner will be able to see which of his staff is obtaining the most reviews. Previously, such information would have been complete guesswork, unless an individual server is specifically named by a customer in a review.

“All of our current clients were already well aware that this is exactly what they need,” says Ivan. “It took about 10 minutes to sell each of them this product. In our extensive preliminary testing, businesses that were averaging 3 reviews a day went up to receiving 15 reviews per day. It's really a game-changer.”

Future plans for RBP are extremely exciting and they are already searching for ways to move the technology into different forms – imagine having the RBP chip implanted within a laminated page at the end of your restaurant menu. But, for now, the next step is to be recognised by one of the biggest three review sites.

“Trip Advisor has a separate platform (RCP) which you can partner with, to offer projects that will get them more reviews,” says Ivan. “Our product will be particularly beneficial to them because it not only increases their number of reviews, it also increases user acquisition.”

“We are processing our application to become one of these partners. They have different tiers of partners, so if you are successful and reach the top, Trip Advisor then promotes you as a solution to all the businesses worldwide who hold accounts on their platform. That's our goal. And I have every confidence we will reach it because all other solutions rely on software, many on downloading a separate app. We found no other solution in the world right now that is using NFC technology for this.”

ZAGREB, July 22, 2020 - In the first 20 days of July Croatia recorded over 1.5 million tourist arrivals and over 11 million nights, which was half the arrivals and nights this year so far, the Croatian Tourism Association (HUT) said on Wednesday.

This year Croatia has logged over 3.2 million arrivals and over 18 million nights.

HUT says in its "Croatia Tourism & Travel Weekly" newsletter that last week saw nearly five million nights, with over 630,000 per day recorded over the past four days.

The Croatian coast has the best epidemiological situation this month, as evidenced by the rise in the number of tourists along the whole coast, including Dalmatia, according to the newsletter.

Of the coastal counties, Zadar is recording the best results, having reached 62% (200,000) of last July's arrivals and 67% of nights (2 million).

The most numerous foreigners come from Germany, followed by Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Poland.

Open at the moment are 802 hotels and 407 campsites.