April 22, 2021 - The Representation of the Croatian Tourist Board in Italy, in cooperation with the Zadar County Tourist Board, is holding a virtual presentation intended for Italian travel agents and B2B media. The topic of the virtual meeting is the tourist offer of Croatia, with emphasis on the offer of Zadar County.  

As htz.hr reports, the virtual presentation gathered more than 60 participants. The presentation included information on the national safety label Safe Stay in Croatia and all measures implemented for the safe stay of tourists in destinations.

"While we are waiting for the full opening of Italy and the possibility of uninterrupted travel, activities such as virtual presentations are an ideal opportunity to, in cooperation with county tourist boards, present the tourist offer of Croatian regions for which Italy is one of the most important markets. In these uncertain times, it is essential to maintain presence and visibility on the market and continuously communicate all current information to partners and the media", said Viviana Vukelic, director of the CNTB Representation in Italy. 

Vukelic added that the Safe Stay's information campaign in Croatia would soon be launched on the Italian market, followed by a B2B campaign in specialized tourist media, and then the main invitation campaign for Italian tourists.

The gathered partners and media representatives were also greeted by the director of the Croatian Tourist Board, Kristjan Staničić. "Good expectations from the Italian market for this season are based on the feedback of the main partners from the Italian market, as well as on the announcements of new shipping and airlines that will connect Croatia and Italy this season," said Staničić.

The presentation of the potential of Zadar County to Italian agents and the media is especially focused on three products, namely outdoor, nautical, and gastronomy.

"Italy has always been our loyal market, which was, unfortunately, the most affected by the epidemic last year, and for which we still expect a good response this year. The Italians greatly appreciate our indented coastline and beautiful archipelago. On this occasion, we reminded the interested partners of our strengths and introduced them to the offer of various opportunities that can be experienced in various parts of the county. Nautics, i.e., islands, with an emphasis on gastronomy, capacities, and various tools to make it easier for our guests to organize their stay, are just some of the prominent topics. We are extremely pleased and optimistic about the great interest shown by the partners for our destinations, which is proven by this virtual meeting", said the director of the Zadar County Tourist Board, Mihaela Kadija.

Regarding traffic connections, along the international ferry line Zadar - Ancona, from July 24 to August 29, 2021, the fast ship of the tour operator Gomo Viaggi with 374 seats will connect Pesaro and Cesenatico with Mali Lošinj and Novalja and Cesenatico with Rovinj. The ship will operate three times a week in July and four times a week in August. The same partner confirmed that it would keep the airline from Ancona to Split in August. Other routes of companies such as EasyJet, Volotea, Ryanair, and Vueling will connect Croatian airports with Rome, Milan, Napoli, Bari, Palermo, and Venice. The cruise company MSC Crociere will start traveling again from June 2021, and Croatia is included in their program. It is planned that their cruisers from Venice, Trieste, and Bari will stop in Dubrovnik and those from Venice and Bari in Split.

Follow the latest on flights to Croatia HERE and the latest travel updates and COVID-19 news from Croatia HERE.

For more on travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

Find more information about Zadar HERE and everything you need to know about the Zadar airport HERE. 

February 1, 2021 – The Adriatic might be too cold for us right now, but conditions are perfect for this dolphin family, spectacularly captured gliding through glacial, undisturbed waters by an overhead drone

The Adriatic might be too cold for us right now, but conditions are perfect for this dolphin family, spectacularly captured gliding through glacial, undisturbed waters by an overhead drone

The footage of the dolphin family was captured spectacularly by keen amateur drone photographer Davor Miljkovic. Davor, who is from Zapresic, usually puts his eye for aesthetics into website design – he works as a PHP website developer for Virtus dizajn in Lanište, Zagreb and as a freelance website developer. But, he is currently taking advantage of working remotely and was able to catch footage of the dolphin family during his off time.

“I live in Zapresic but my grandmother is from island Rava, near Zadar,” Davor told TCN on 1st February 2021, two days after he posted the video of the dolphin family to his Youtube channel. “So, we have a house here by the sea. My fiance and I spend part of the winter here and we are here all summer too.”

The Zadar archipelago (in Croatian Zadarski arhipelag) is an incredibly picturesque group of islands off the coast of the city of Zadar. In addition to island Rava, off which Davor saw the dolphin family, the archipelago also consists of the islands Dugi Otok, Galešnjak, Iž, Lavdara, Ošljak, Pašman, Rivanj, Sestrunj, Tun Veli, Ugljan, Vir, Vrgada, Zečevo and Zverinac.

The beautiful stretch of islands is usually very popular with summertime visitors. It would seem that it's also popular in wintertime with visitors who live in the sea. And, of course, people like Davor who are lucky enough to catch sight of them.

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As Novac writes on the 12th of November, 2019, there have never been better figures for the tourist season for the island of Vir. With 127,085 overnight stays realised in October alone, it outshone many other destinations across the country.

The total tourist turnover in overnight stays in the period from January the 1st to the end of October saw the island of Vir acheive 2,587,930 overnight stays in total, finishing in seventh place in the list of Croatia's top 10 destinations for 2019.

Dubrovnik achieved better results in October with the figure of 407,722, Zagreb with 234,703 and Split with 181,058. Zadar, Rovinj, Opatija, Poreč, Labin and Konavle remain behind Vir, Croatia's new record holder, writes Zadarski list.

Vir is also the new Croatian record holder in another statistical segment of tourist traffic monitoring, which is overnight stays realised in non-commercial accommodation, and the figures for that in October amounted to 125,216. In the same categories, Vir is the ''traditional champion'' of Croatian tourism in terms of the total figures realised so far in 2019.

The figures for October also show something else - that 98.5 percent of the tourist traffic on this island during the aforementioned period was achieved on the basis of individual traffic, which indicates an increasing number of ''weekenders'' and property owners during the post-season on the island.

In terms of sporting events, the favourable weather in October brought 127,285 overnight stays to Vir, an increase of 25.1 percent, of which 83.3 percent was generated by Croatian guests. When looking at the picture of foreign arrivals, Slovenians realised the most overnight stays, while the highest growth was recorded by guests from Germany. In addition to the Slovenians and the Germans, Austrian, Slovakian and Czech passport holders also recorded solid figures in October.

With regard to the total data so far, out of 2,587,930 overnight stays realised on Vir since the beginning of the year, 1,435,520 overnight stays were realised by domestic tourists, ie 55.5 percent of them, and 1,152,410 were realised by foreign guests, which is 44.5 percent, with total growth of four percent. The highest number of overnight stays was recorded by Slovenian citizens with 295,345 such stays acheived, followed by Germans with 223,415, followed then by Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, Austrians, Poles, Bosnians, Swedes and Swiss citizens.

These figures have further strengthened Vir's position, not only on the list which showcases Croatia's top 10 national destination elite, but in a general touristic sense. This positive trend has also been confirmed by the higher number of tourist arrivals in general, which was expressed in October by significant growth of 16.4 percent.

In October, 458,710 overnight stays realised by tourists were recorded at the level of Zadar County as a whole, making it the fifth Croatian county in tourist terms behind Split-Dalmatia, Dubrovnik-Neretva, Istria and Kvarner.

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