April the 21st, 2022 - The post-coronavirus tourism optimists appear to have been correct in their predictions for this year, with Croatian Easter tourism having seen such good numbers that we can hopefully breathe a sigh of relief this summer.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, those who predicted good forecasts for Croatian Easter tourism were right, despite the very uncertain geopolitical circumstances that continue to threaten tourism across Europe owing to the war in Ukraine.
According to eVisitor, from Friday, April the 15th, to Monday, there were about 135,000 arrivals and about 493,000 overnight stays realised, of which foreign tourists realised more than 412,000 overnight stays. Last year, a third of that traffic was generated for Easter, due to the difficult epidemiological situation with the coronavirus pandemic, which is why the pre-season was almost nothing to speak of last year, but it's also worth mentioning that Easter itself came two weeks earlier than it did this year.
In the last pre-pandemic year of 2019, Easter came a week later, closer to Labour Day, which always means better traffic. As such, in the same period back in 2019, on the eve of Easter, there were 5 percent more overnight stays realised in Croatia than this year with Easter traffic. Still, this is a result that heralds a good rest of the year, the sector believes. Equal optimism reigns in the rest of the Mediterranean and in neighbouring Slovenia.
"In addition the excellent results achieved during the extended Easter weekend, we're also pleased to note that about 145,000 tourists stayed in this country on Saturday. It's also the day with the largest number of tourists recorded on a daily basis this year, and we expect positive trends in the continuation of the pre-season, ie during May and June,'' said the director of the Croatian Tourist Board, Kristjan Stanicic.
The Germans were the most numerous over the Croatian Easter tourism period
Traditionally, the best traffic realised during Easter was always up in Istria (about 188,000 overnight stays), Kvarner (more than 90,000 overnight stays), Split-Dalmatia (more than 55,000 overnight stays) and then Dubrovnik-Neretva County (more than 43,000 overnight stays). When looking solely at overnight stays, most were realised in Porec, Rovinj, Dubrovnik, Zagreb, Split, Umag and Zadar.
At the same time, the largest number of overnight stays realised over the Croatian Easter tourism period was realised by guests from Germany, followed by those from the Croatian market and guests from Austria, Slovenia, Italy and Slovakia. Also common for the pre-season, most overnight stays were realised in hotels (more than 210,000 overnight stays), followed by household/private/family facilities (more than 112,000 overnight stays) and campsites (more than 99,000 overnight stays).
"We've exceeded the number of 3.6 million overnight stays since the beginning of the year, which is 120 percent more overnight stays than in the same period last year, but also 95 percent of overnight stays in the same period back in 2019. These results confirm the strengthening of the recognisability of Croatia as a year-round destination of added value, which is our strategic commitment.
Tourists perceive Croatia as a destination in which to have a pleasant and quality holiday, so we focused our activities on maintaining that status, but also on developing Croatia as a sustainably responsible destination,'' said the Minister of Tourism, Nikolina Brnjac.
Veljko Ostojic, the director of the Croatian Tourism Association, says that comparisons of traffic with last year's Croatian Easter tourism numbers aren't so important now, as these results are an indicator of that good trend that we wished for, but with great caution.
''We entered this year with great caution due to the war in Ukraine, but these results show that Croatia is an attractive destination and that people really want to travel. Therefore, we have no reason to be dissatisfied, even though we're facing a challenging May, and we've been equipping tourist companies to open the season at the end of May,'' said Veljko Ostojic.
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