More tourists from China and Korea are expected.
The Tourist Council of the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ) has proposed, while the HTZ Assembly has accepted the organisation’s 2018 budget, which envisions 12 percent higher revenues, as well as the increase in tourism traffic of seven percent compared to this year. The plans include the opening of two new HTZ representative offices, in Shanghai and Seoul, reports tportal.hr on December 20, 2017.
“HTZ’s budget for 2018 forecasts revenues in the amount of almost 290 million kunas, due to good initial signals from international and domestic markets for the next year, as well as due to an expectation that income from the tourist tax will increase by about 26 percent. The HTZ expects to receive about 44 million kunas from the state budget, which is roughly the same as this year,” said Tourism Minister and HTZ president Gari Cappelli.
He added that the HTZ would open two additional international representative offices, in South Korea and China. Also, a large office in New York will be opened before the end of this year, while two smaller offices in Rome and Los Angeles by the end of next year, in order to improve Croatia’s presence in the Italian and North American markets, especially in Canada.
“In cooperation with the Embassy of China and the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, we are in negotiations about the details of opening of a representative office in that country, in Shanghai, because there are more and more Chinese tourists coming to Croatia, as well as from South Korea, which is the reason why we will open an office in Seoul by the beginning of next summer. In these two distant markets, we will be even more seriously represented than before, which is important since China has declared the next year to be a year of tourism in Europe and had recommended to its tourists to visit Europe,” said Minister Cappelli.
As for a branch office in Rome, it is expected to intensify activities in the Italian market, where the HTZ already has the principal representative office in Milan. That should bring about even better results from this important market, which was among few which have stagnated this year and apparently demands a new approach.
Director of the HTZ Main Office Kristjan Staničić said that a major air travel programme is being prepared for the next year. The Council has discussed the bids from air carriers, and the decision will be made “in due course when certain technical details are resolved.”
“The Council has also adopted rules for incentives for the development of the tourism sector in 2018, which regulate the conditions, criteria and methods of awarding small grants, based on which we will issue a public call for projects of tourism initiatives in underdeveloped areas,” Staničić announced, adding that it was essential for these calls to be published early next year. This will give users enough time to apply and plan and implement their activities.
Translated from tportal.hr
