December the 15th, 2021 - Faithful German tourists who were among the first to pack their famous motorhomes and hit the road to Croatia following the lifting of lockdown measures have praised Croatian campsites. There is, however, still one thing missing in their view...
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, although Croatian campsites have an offer that, in terms of all categories of quality and content, significantly differs from the European average, the unimpressive vaccination rate across the country and high mortality throughout the COVID-19 pandemic here in Croatia could cost this sector and the entire tourism industry next season, especially when it comes to the German market, as shown by an analysis from the popular German car club ADAC.
This is important now because reservations for next summer are already coming in for Croatian campsites, and an additional problem for Croatian campsites is that currently only 46 percent of them can be booked. ''Others need to wake up and make an effort to become more visible online,'' warned Uwe Frers, the CEO of Pincamp, ADAC’s booking portal for campsites.
His portal is otherwise the most important campsite search engine in the entire German market with six million unique users in Germany, whose importance is all the greater given that camping is generally not advertised or sold on major online platforms such as Booking.com.
“Pincamp's analysis showed that an automatic and flexible cancellation policy (42 percent) and applications with an alarm about the current conditions under which travel can be key to raising confidence in travel over the next twelve months. If you don't announce your cancellation policy now, you could lose guests who would like to come to Croatian campsites. Don't wait for others to announce theirs before you do, because an interested guest would rather seize the first opportunity,'' said Frers from the Congress of Croatian Camping, which took place in Tuhelj at the end of last week.
Pincamp has nothing but pure praise for Croatian campsites, even in the last turbulent year the availability of online booking has increased from 24 percent to 46 percent, and it is important for guests to book a pitch in advance. For comparison, in Austria, a place can be reserved for the next season in 88 percent of camps, and in 63 percent of camps in Slovenia. In this respect, Croatia is on a par with Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, although these are significantly larger markets.
''For even better sales next season, it is important for Croatian campsites to simplify their prices as much as possible, to calculate all of the additional costs. In terms of quality and content, Croatian campsites can hardly be much better than they are now,'' praised Frers.
This ADAC analysis show edthat Croatian campsites have on average 11 percent better quality in terms of their pitches than average European campsites, meaning that Croatia is 37 percent better than the average in terms of bathing facilities (sea, swimming pools, aquaparks), and 20 percent better in terms of entertainment and similar content.
As many as 43 percent of average Croatian campsites have better ADAC ratings for shopping and restaurant facilities, but safety security could prove to be a problem, although the campsites themselves are not to blame.
"Safety is very important for the Germans in choosing a destination for next year, and they're closely following the news and statistics, coronavirus incidence is very important to them, as is the vaccination rate. This is where Croatia comes off quite badly when compared to competitors across the Mediterranean, such as Italy, France, Spain... and you must be aware that this is the signal you're sending out to your potential guests. Please send out a good message to German tourists,'' warned Uwe Frers in conclusion.
For more, check out our dedicated travel section.
