ZAGREB, Aug 29, 2020 - Better-than-expected results in the tourist season in July and August in Croatia cannot be applied for stakeholders in conference tourism and tour operators that rely on doing business in shoulder seasons, the association of business tourism within the Croatian Chamber of Commerce said on Saturday.
The association recalls that total coronavirus lockdown was imposed this spring, a period when business tourism usually has the most intensive activities, and this HGK group also fears of the imminent restrictions in the post-season when this type of tourism should resume its activities.
Jasmina Kanas of the HGK business tourism association says in a press release that Friday's decision made by the national COVID-19 crisis management team whereby all healthcare institutions are supposed to postpone congresses, symposiums, conference, workshops, lectures and similar gatherings until further notice is "the last nail in the coffin" for business tourism.
Kanas recalls that a majority of gatherings organised by business tourism stakeholders are in the field of medicine.
Public healthcare protocols can be fully complied with at events organised by our businesses, and participants in such events are people (healthcare workers) who have got accustomed to applying even stricter epidemiological measures, Kanas says.
The HGK group also underlines that it does not blame anyone for the latest developments and that protagonists have the full understanding for the epidemiological measures in place.
We hope that the government will also show understanding, given that our revenues in 2020 are equal to zero, as a direct consequence of the epidemiological measures.
Kanas says that stakeholders in business tourism cannot be equally treated as businesses in other types of tourism that have manged to secure some earnings.
Therefore they request some incentives to overcome this year, such as non-repayable subsidies equal to 10% of their turnover in 2019.
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