March the 22nd, 2024 – There appears to be less interest in family accommodation this Easter, with those in Croatian tourism advocating for owners to offer discounts to the first larger wave of tourists of the year.
As Ana Roksandic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Easter holidays and the arrival of spring here in Croatia traditionally mark the beginning of the pre-season and the first considerable wave of tourists. Given that Easter falls earlier this year than usual, it’s interesting to see whether or not this had an effect on the interest of local and foreign guests to visit the coast this spring.
The Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ) says that in the current part of the year, they have recorded a positive trend of growth in tourist traffic over the pre-season and believe that this is an indicator of optimistic expectations regarding the further influx of guests as the year progresses.
“Since the beginning of the year, Croatia has achieved growth in terms of tourist arrivals of eight percent and overnight stays of four percent compared to the same period last year. During the Easter period, we expect increased interest in coastal destinations, mostly from the nearest markets such as Italy, Austria, Hungary and Slovenia. In addition to people coming from those countries, a larger share of tourist traffic realised during Easter is traditionally made up of local guests from across Croatia,” they revealed from the Croatian Tourist Board (CNTB/HTZ).
(Un)realistic prices
It’s already well known that Croatia welcomes most of its tourists at this time of year private, family accommodation, which makes up the largest part of the proverbial tourist pie. According to last year’s data from the Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP), Croatia actually has the smallest share of hotel beds of all countries in the European Union, with a mere 10 percent of the country’s accommodation actually being in hotels.
Barbara Marković, the president of the Croatian Association of Family Accommodation, confirmed how large a share family accommodation actually is in the Croatian tourism picture. She estimates that it accounts for 70 percent of the country’s accommodation capacities. She said that the announcements for this year’s tourist season are good, and the reservations promise both a good main season and post-season.
“The pre-season is a bit less busy than usual, but considering that Easter is set to fall much earlier this year, we think that a lot of accommodation will be booked up at the ‘last minute’ and probably in accordance with the weather conditions. During that period, we’re counting on guests from across Croatia, and that’s why we’re advising all owners of family/private accommodation to offer additional discounts for Croatian guests,” said Marković. She believes that all those who raised their prices unrealistically last year will certainly not do it again this year.
The effect on given destinations
“The point is that drastically lowering prices during the high season collapses the entire destination and makes it a location for mass tourism. I appeal that the prices go in accordance with the quality, and by no means that we’re desperately looking for guests by constantly lowering the prices. Croatia needs to be branded as a high-quality destination,” emphasised Marković.
While in family accommodation for the Easter pre-season, they’re still eagerly awaiting guests who decide to go to the coast at the last minute, in the hotels – they believe that they’ve had a busy start to the pre-season which has been full of guests.
HTZ noted that more than 485 Croatian hotels have recorded tourist traffic so far in March, and it’s to be expected that almost 60 percent of the total number of hotel facilities across Croatia will be open by Easter.
Valamar, the largest tourist company operating in Croatia, expects a pre-season full of local guests and those from Germany, Austria and Slovenia. “For Easter, Valamar will have ten hotels and four campsites open in most destinations. We’re satisfied with the current booking announcements”, they stated from Valamar.
It can be concluded that Croatian tourism, as a body, believes that Easter, which falls on the last day of March, will attract both domestic and foreign guests. This will especially be the case if the weather conditions are nice, and the CNTB have noted that the new air routes to Croatia that have been announced for this year speak in favour of that.
