April 14, 2021 - With the season approaching, the question on everyone's mind is will traveling during the coronavirus pandemic to Croatia bring problems for tourism in the country?' A light at the end of the tunnel still might be possible.

While many high-reputation magazines regularly praise Croatia as a top destination, this summer, the season will be only as strong as the health situation regarding coronavirus – both in Croatia and abroad, from where the country welcomes as many tourists as possible. Sadly, as Croatian National Radiotelevision (HRT) reports, due to the bad pandemic situation, many European countries, including Croatia, are canceling the travel season.

While, as we reported on TCN, many flights are returning and coming to Croatia, the measures are possibly demotivating travelers.

HRT says Croatia is declared as a highly-risked country in Germany, and returning citizens need to show a negative test that is no older than 48 hours which is a change to previous arrangments when Germans could test after returning home.

„The English planned to allow traveling from May 17 but tour operators and others don't have a big number of reservations to make it profitable so everything is postponed until June 24“, said hotelier  Domagoj Tomasović to HRT. 

British tourists were indeed expected mid-May, but as Darija Reić, director of the Croatian Tourist Board in London, said on the "Good Morning Croatia show" on HRT, there are still fines for non-essential travel.

„Travelling outside of UK is still illegal if you don't travel for essential reasons which include traveling for business, education or medicinal purposes. Otherwise, it's possible to be fined 5000 pounds“, explained Reić, as noted by Turizmoteka.

Tonči Glavina, state secretary for Tourism ministry, said for HRT that the UK is not alone in sending a message to its citizens to not travel anywhere and went on to say that may not be bad for Croatia.

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While the UK stands better in the percentage of vaccinated people than Croatia, Croatians are focusing on reaching the green zone by the end of May. Seventy thousand vaccinated workers in the tourist sector are the goal for the country.

„If that doesn't happen until the start of the season, then we need tests and it would be good if tourist board make testing zones and if we co-finance the expenses of testing to our guests“, concluded Tomasović.

The Ministry of Tourism already secured 20 million kuna to co-finance testing for tourists if Croatia doesn't reach the green zone.

PCR tests currently cost 500 kuna; quick antigen test is 150 kuna, and the translations of the results to English is 125 kuna. Twenty tourists were already tested in Zagreb on Tuesday. 

Learn more about coronavirus: news and travel in Croatia on our TC page.

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August 21, 2020 - After the UK added Croatia to the quarantine list on Thursday, British Airways is busy bringing citizens back to Britain. 

Croatian Aviation reports that in order to meet the high demand that arose after Croatia was included on the list of quarantine countries, British Airways will land in all three Croatian airports today with an A321NEO aircraft.

British Airways normally operates to Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik on smaller capacity aircraft, but today, due to high demand from British tourists who want to return home before the new measures come into force (14-day self-isolation for all passengers coming from Croatia), regular routes to the three mentioned airports use a larger capacity aircraft - A321 NEO. This aircraft has a capacity of as many as 235 passengers (for comparison, A319 and A320 aircraft with a capacity of 144 to 180 seats usually operate in Croatia).

In addition to British Airways, which will operate two flights from Split Airport today, three easyJet aircraft (capacity 180 passengers) will take off for London, as well as WizzAir aircraft A321 (capacity 230 passengers).

In addition to the British Airways flight, Dubrovnik Airport will have another EasyJet flight to London and one to Bristol (on both flights the maximum capacity is 180 passengers).

Today, Croatia Airlines will operate a regular flight on the Zagreb - London Heathrow route, but instead of the A319, a larger capacity aircraft - the A320 - will operate today.

Given the number of seats offered, it is clear that this is not enough for all tourists from Croatia to return to the UK on time, before the introduction of restrictive measures. After all, certain routes have already been sold out, while prices on some flights have exceeded the average several times.

We remind you that from Saturday, August 22, all passengers entering the UK from Croatia will have to go into 14 days of self-isolation.

According to information from the UK, there are currently 20,000 tourists from that country in Croatia. Britain views Croatia as a whole, without regional or county demarcations, and warns that the situation has deteriorated dramatically compared to three weeks ago.

Britain refers to the latest data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, according to which Croatia has recorded 37.7 confirmed infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last two weeks. For comparison, Britain records 21.2 infected, Slovenia 12.8, and Sweden 39.5.

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

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