Vir island used to be known in Croatia as one of the places with the most illegaly built buildings, but these day's it's one of the rare places in Croatia where the tourist records are being broken this year.
bout the tourist boom on the island: while others are trying to hide their tourist numbers in 2019, the tourist workers on Vir are bragging about theirs. One more bed and one more table at the restaurants are constantly being sought, and it's almost impossible to find an empty spot on the beach. Around 5000 people live on the island year-round, and there are ten times as many guests vacationing there at the moment. The last exact number is that there are over 45000 guests on the island, which is 2 percent more than in the same period last year. And in 2018 Vir recorded over 2.5 million overnight stays.
Srđan Liverić, the Tourist Board of Vir director says that those numbers put Vir at the top of the tourist destination in Zadar County and in the top seven in Croatia. This year they expect (and have good reason to expect!) even better results.
Vir's success did not fall from the skies, it's a result of hard work and a lot of investments into infrastructure - over 500 million kuna, to be exact. Currently there are over 15 thousand beds and 1800 private renters on the island. The number of four-star apartments with a breathtaking view is increasing rapidly. A renter from Vir island, Robert Maloča says that their season lasts for 80, 90 days at the moment, but they're working on prolonging that. That's achieved with offering quality content, but also by going to tourist fairs around the world, which brings customers from everywhere, in addition to the weekend vacationers who help bring their numbers up. Peter from New York says that there's music, there's bars, there's a lot of people on the beaches - this is paradise!
Antonio Vučetić from Vir municipality says that Vir is the non-commercial record holder in Croatia. He stresses that it's not a minus for them, and invites all non-commercial customers to come to Vir. This successful tourist story could bring additional work on improving the beaches and a new hotel might get built in the centre of the town.
