Italians are ready for their summer vacation season.
Italy is one of the most important incoming markets for the Croatian tourism industry, with over one million arrivals last year. Ahead of the Ferragosto summer vacation season, Croatia is in the focus of the Italian media, which point out that Croatia has managed to preserve its authenticity, ambiance and the traditional way of life, and offers a rich variety of food, wines and festivals suited for younger guests, reports tportal.hr on August 1, 2018.
“Italian tourists have recorded over 450,000 arrivals and more than 1.7 million overnight stays since January. The most intense period for this market is ahead of us, and with our proactive approach and thoughtful PR and marketing activities, we have managed to convince Italian tourists to choose Croatia for their destination. There have been a lot of activities through social networks, as well as special presentations that we prepared for the younger Italians,” said director of the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ) Kristjan Staničić, adding that improved traffic connections between Italy and Croatia were a driving factor for the growth of the tourist traffic from this market.
Croatia’s popularity among the Italians is also shown by numerous articles published in the most popular Italian magazines. The tourist magazine “Marco Polo” has devoted its cover to Primošten and Šibenik-Knin and Zadar Counties, while “Caravan e Camper” published the cover story “Return to Dubrovnik”. “La Stampa” points out that Croatia is more than just the sun and the sea, and that it also offers popular music festivals. The Italian edition of “Vogue” also writes about Croatia and the island of Vis.
“Cosmopolitan” has explored Croatian beaches, listing ten places where paradise can be found. The famous travel magazine “Bel Europa” has published a special set of articles about Croatia, with the island of Vis on the cover. The magazine, which has more than 450,000 readers, specifically emphasized the importance of Croatian tradition and culture. The Porer lighthouse has been featured on the cover of “DOVE”, which also included stories on Lošinj, Brač, Hvar, Korčula and Mljet, as well as the Veli Rat lighthouse.
“The Italian media are great fans and friends of Croatia and often report on our destinations and tourist offer. We are particularly pleased to see a significant increase in the interest of key Italian bloggers and influencers who have a large number of followers and want to visit Croatia. It is precisely this kind of co-operation that will be even more strongly in the focus of our planning activities for 2019,” said Viviana Vukelić, director of the HTZ representative office in Italy.
Interestingly, the Italian travel search engine Skyscanner.it analyzed the search results for flights from Italy to the countries which played in the final rounds of the recent World Cup: Croatia, France, Belgium and England. The goal was to determine the “winner” as selected by Italian travellers. The cities with the largest growth in the number of searches were Zagreb, Pula, Split, Zadar and Dubrovnik. With a total of five out of ten cities in the rankings, Croatia was the “winner” of this competition.
According to the share in the total traffic from Italy, the leading region is Istria, with the 47% of all Italian overnights, followed by Kvarner with a 26% share and Zadar County with a 6% share. Favourite destinations of Italians are Rovinj, Medulin, Poreč, Mali Lošinj, Novalja, Umag, Pula and Cres. Most Italians, 74%, visited Croatian destinations as individual tourists. The Italians mostly travel to Croatia during the peak tourist season, since as much as 61% of arrivals and 73% of overnights are recorded during July and August.
Translated from tportal.hr.
