Tourist boards will have more than they're likely to have assumed previously at their disposal to promote Croatia here at home and across Europe to try to encourage foreign tourists.
As Morski writes on the 19th of June, 2020, the 68th session of the Tourist Council was held recently in Opatija, where the members of the council, in the presence of the Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli and the director of the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ), Kristjan Stanicic, adopted amendments to HTZ's Annual Work Programme and Financial Plan for 2020. The new plan envisions a reduction in total revenues of the Croatian Tourist Board for this year of about 35 percent compared to the original plan, while a reduction of about 40 percent is projected on the expenditure side.
''Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where tourism is the most affected industry, we found ourselves in a situation of preserving health, as well as jobs, where our government provided direct assistance to half a million employees, as well as a number of benefits for businesses. As such, we've introduced a number of relief measures for those in the business of tourism and hospitality, and we sent those changes via an e-Conference to the regulations on tourist membership fees which reduce the prescribed lump sum amounts by 50 percent,'' said Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli when commenting on the current situation in respect to the economy.
''We approached the amendments to the Croatian National Tourist Board's Annual Work Programme and Financial Plan due to the extraordinary circumstances that arose as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic, which is still strongly influencing global tourism trends. This new plan ensures the continuity of promotional activities on the foreign market through joint promotional activities for the main summer part of the tourist year, which we'll carry out in cooperation with the system of the tourist boards and our key partners in selected markets, for which members of the Tourist Council approved seven million kuna,'' stated HTZ's director, Kristjan Stanicic, emphasising that intensive promotional campaigns on European emitting markets have been underway since the beginning of June, and that the strong promotion of Croatian tourism on the domestic market will begin soon.
By the decisions made by the Tourist Council, budgets for the implementation of new joint promotional activities for the year 2020 with regional tourist boards were readily accepted, with which HTZ will co-finance up to 50 percent of the value of media plans for destination advertising, as well as for cooperation with foreign tour operators and carriers promoting their programmes for Croatia and operating in foreign markets. i
These include numerous European markets like that of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Italy and the United Kingdom.
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