Croatia’s tourism Mecca, the Medieval walled city of Dubrovnik and the country’s southernmost city, relies very heavily on air traffic partially owing to the fact that it is effectively cut off from the rest of the country by the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina at Neum, the neighbouring country’s only piece of coastline.
While this usually doesn’t pose that much of an issue as it can typically be crossed quickly with some exceptions during the height of the summer season, the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, and the lack of air traffic to Dubrovnik from other European countries which have banned unnecessary travel, such as the United Kingdom, has dealt a heavy blow to the city which once rested very firmly on its laurels.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, the vaccination of Dubrovnik tourism employees began recently, and it was accompanied by the Minister of Tourism Nikolina Brnjac who was there on a working visit. The Minister and the Prefect of Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Nikola Dobroslavic, visited the point of organised vaccination in the sports hall in Gospino polje.
“Thanks to our Dubrovnik tourism employees who responded to the organised vaccination invitation, this is an extremely important message being sent out from the tourism sector to foreign guests who are planning to come to Croatia this year. We’re seriously preparing all the conditions to have the safest and most successful tourist year. I encourage and invite tourist workers to get vaccinated, from May the 1st we’ll receive 230,000 doses of vaccine per week, the amount of vaccine will be enough to optimally prepare for the season,” said Minister Nikolina Brnjac.
After Dubrovnik, in accordance with the priorities and national vaccination plan, the vaccination of tourism employees will begin in all other tourist destinations across the Republic of Croatia, and the exact order of priority vaccination by counties will be determined by the Croatian Institute of Public Health. The Ministry of Tourism plans to organise vaccinations for all seasonal workers as well, if necessary, as well as for providers of household accommodation services after the vaccination of employees in larger companies is completed, where there are higher risks of spreading the infection.
In addition to providing priority vaccination for Dubrovnik tourism employees and of course other such workers across the country, additional points for testing guests for the novel coronavirus in tourist destinations are currently being set up, antigen tests for tourists will be co-financed, and while people with a reason or with residence in Croatia were always able to arrive in the country, Croatia has been open to tourists coming from third countries such as the USA and Russia since back at the beginning of April.
For more on coronavirus specific to Croatia, from travel, border and quarantine rules to the locations of vaccination points and testing centres across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section.
