Dubrovnik tourism has always been able to rest on its laurels. The sheer beauty of the city and its incredible landscape have both always been more than enough to draw tourists in in their droves. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck and the city that was once a victim of its own success was flipped upside down.
As Morski writes on the 26th of July, 2020, the mayor of Dubrovnik, Mato Frankovic, commented on the numbers being realised in Croatia's southernmost city during the tourist season at the end of July. Dubrovnik is one of the cities that have requested the division of the Republic of Croatia into four zones - the northern and southern coasts, and then central Croatia and the eastern part of the country to make it easier for tourists to follow which areas are ''coronavirus free''.
Frankovic says that they sent a request for such a division to the National Civil Protection Headquarters.
''It's very important that the statistical data, when sent to the European Centre for COVID Disease Control, is divided by region so that European countries and indeed other countries know exactly what is happening in Croatia,'' said the mayor of Dubrovnik. He believes that the Headquarters will accept this request.
Frankovic pointed out that Dubrovnik will report to the ambassadors of other countries on a weekly basis on the situation with the ongoing epidemic.
When asked when the strengthening of air traffic is expected, Frankovic said that by the middle of next week, Dubrovnik will be connected with 51 destinations, which will hopefully give Dubrovnik tourism a much needed boost.
''August will be much better, we have announcements for the whole of autumn. I believe we will manage to reach the target of traffic of 30 percent for the season,'' he says. He also explained why Dubrovnik is asking for state help.
''I wouldn't like it to turn out that Dubrovnik is a beggar city, but I'd like to mention that the records of Dubrovnik were the ones to have filled the state budget. Now Dubrovnik expects a small part of that to keep us stable for the future,'' said Mato Frankovic, adding that the state is in some way indebted to Dubrovnik.
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