“We expect that the upcoming year will also be a record year, and the Ministry of Tourism expects growth at the level of 5 percent,” said State Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism Frano Matušić during the fourth session of the Tourist Business Council at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, held on 21 December. He added that they are ambitious and will be working on legislative amendments to improve the infrastructure in tourism, reports HRTurizam on 24 December 2016.
“We will implement amendments to the Law on Tourist Boards, amendments to the Tourist Tax, and will be working to prepare a proposal for amendments to the Law on Tourist Land. The CroCard project aims to contribute to a stronger stimulation of domestic guests, especially for inland tourism. The program centers of competence and cooperation of all relevant institutions are planned to carry out targeted training and retraining for tourism. Congress tourism will again be encouraged, and we plan to open three major convention centers in Croatia,” said Matušić on plans for 2017.
“This year and last year’s tourist season were successful and well done, with significantly large investments in the hotel sector, and we believe that this trend will continue,” said Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce for Tourism, Trade and Finance (HGK) Josip Zaher. He added that the HGK continues to strongly connect domestic production to tourism, which is specialized by the action “Buy Croatian – Croatian products for Croatian tourism”, as a stimulus to economic growth.
“For the tourist year 2017 it is necessary to promote and sell extremely professionally,” said Chairman of TPV at HGK Franco Palma, adding that the biggest steps forward in tourism are the numerous investments in hotels. “This year investments in tourism amounted to 676 million euros. Next year will amount to 817 million euros, of which 500 million euros will be from the private sector which will restore and open 42 new hotels,” said Matušić.
“In the first ten months of this year, Croatia has made a total of 15 million tourist arrivals, which is 8.3% more than the previous year, and 70.6 million overnight stays, which is 8.8% more than last year,” added the director of Market Research and Strategic Planning for HTZ Igor Borojević. The next year in Croatia expects even better results in the tourist off-season, and an overall growth in tourist overnights by 3.3%, concluded Borojević.
