For the fifth consecutive year, the tourist-holiday event ‘Advent in Zagreb’ will take place from 26 November to 8 January, 2017 and will boast an even richer program with more content than ever before.
The organizers held a press conference on Thursday at Zagreb’s Hotel Esplanade where the director of the Zagreb Tourist Board, Martina Bienenfeld, announced the expansion of events to 10 new locations including Gornji Grad and Novi Zagreb, reports Poslovni.hr.
“This year we will try to defend the title of best European destination for Advent and we, with the help of many partners and the private and public sector, have organized existing and new facilities. We have two great partner airlines – Croatia Airlines and Turkish Airlines that we will work with for promotional campaigns, as well as others,” announced Bienenfeld.
More than 100 journalists, organizers, travel agents and hoteliers gathered as Bienenfeld announced that during the month of December, they will also implement special research for spending habits of visitors during this time in Zagreb.
“The Institute for Tourism in Zagreb in December will do research on tourist spending in order to know exactly how those numbers work. We believe that this consumption, as well as tourist arrivals and overnight stays, will be higher than last year’s 70,500 tourists and 124,000 overnight stays because of the numbers in Croatia and throughout the region, as well as a number of foreign markets, is already excellent,” said Bienenfeld.
Rough estimates put forward to spending could be higher than last year, which amounted to about 123 euros on the average, per tourist per day, totaling more than 15 million kuna. Bienenfeld added that the Zagreb Tourist Board for advertising on-line and off-line campaigns for Advent have spent two million kuna, while an additional 3.5 million kuna was spent on everything else, including the preparation for the Advent location, facilities and more.
Part of the costs will be covered by the City of Zagreb who, along with the Zagreb Tourist Board, are the organizers of Advent.
The Mayor also expects a much better Advent this year.
“We visited many cities and learned from others, and we have made our Advent become the best. When you combine all the creative forces in Zagreb to learning from others we get not only a 50% increase in visitors in the last two years, but also numerous effects and events for the city of Zagreb,” noted Mayor who thanked all those who organized and who will visit Zagreb.
The program of this year’s Advent, as in previous years, will include a Christmas tale in Ban Jelacic Square, the advent of the European markets in park Zrinjevac, the Ice Park with skating rink at Tomislav Square, Fuliranje on Tomićeva and Kurelčeva street, while the new Advent in Upper Town will be in the open courtyard of the famous palace and Gallery Klovićevi dvori and Strossmartre. Another novelty will be the advent of Novi Zagreb, for example the Ice tale of Santa Claus at the Zagreb Fair and in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art.
All of the programs will be accompanied by a wide selection of drinks and food on the streets, a Christmas fair with antique and traditional and modern holiday offerings, promotional campaigns at national, regional and European markets – and especially German, Italian, British, French, and Japan and Korea. In cooperation with the CNTB, the Zagreb Tourist Board will organize study tours of foreign journalists and travel agents from many countries, with campaigns having already begun in Milan and in Ljubljana, and through all advertising channels.
