January the 7th, 2021 - Despite the fact that Croatia's current coronavirus measures prohibit the entry of foreign nationals unless they hold lawful residence in Croatia or can prove that they have pressing personal, family or economic reasons to be here, there are still foreign guests in the country. Croatian hotels, however, recorded far more Croatian guests than they did foreigners over the New Year period.
As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, although the epidemiological profession urged Croatian hotels to refrain from any New Year programmes due to the increase in the number of people infected with coronavirus, there were still Croatian hotels that, primarily symbolically, rang in 2021.
According to data from eVisitor, a total of 5,249 guests stayed in Croatian hotels on New Year's Eve, ten times less than on the previous New Year's Eve, with a significantly different structure of guests than last year.
Namely, while at last year's celebrations there were three times more foreign guests than there were Croatian ones, this time, there were more than six times more Croatian guests than foreigners staying in Croatian hotels.
Nevertheless, domestic tourist traffic was two thirds lower in terms of overnight stays than it was on New Year's Eve previously, with 4,556 overnight stays recorded, while 693 foreign guests were accommodated in Croatian hotels across the country at the turn of the year.
However, only a handful of Croatian hotels were actually open for the New Year, which in normal years is mostly dominated by hotels in Zagreb, Kvarner and Istria. Only 193 hotel facilities out of about 1,200 recorded overnight stays on New Year's Eve, and they recorded an average of about 21 percent occupancy.
Despite the above, there were exceptions in terms of occupancy, and full occupancy, according to eVisitor, was recorded by one facility in Buje and one facility in Karlovac County, but the Croatian Tourist Board isn't revealing which hotels are in question. Otherwise, 7270 guests were recorded as having stayed in private accommodation facilities on New Year's Eve.
Although a number of Croatian hotels announced back during October that they intended to organise a New Year's Eve party with live music and dancing, their plans soon failed with the deteriorating epidemiological situation and the introduction of new anti-epidemic measures.
Although they didn't actually specifically include the closure of Croatian hotels and hotel restaurants, the maximum number of outdoor and indoor gatherings was cut, and in the meantime, passes between counties were introduced one again, although it was possible to travel with confirmation of having previously booked accommodation. Meanwhile, passes after the recent Petrinja earthquake were lifted, but there are question marks surrounding just how much that affected traffic in this regard.
After the appeal of epidemiologists, Croatian hotels certainly gave up on the idea of live music and similar ideas in the meantime, and the celebrations surrounding the ringing in of the New Year was reduced enormously.
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