There have been several high profile political squabbles with neighbours, but this has not stopped tourists from former Yugoslavia visiting Croatia in record numbers.
It has been a summer of political tension with the neighbours, but this has had no effect of tourist arrivals from Croatia’s neighbours – in fact quite the opposite, according to a report in Balkan Insight on August 12, 2015.
With the border arbitration dispute with Slovenia ongoing, the tensions with Serbia over the anniversary of Operation Storm, disagreements with Bosnia and Herzegovina over the construction of the Peljesac bridge, and another border dispute with Montenegro which was cited as one of the reasons for the withdrawal of Marathon Oil and OMV from the Adriatic Drilling project, it would have been reasonable to assume that Croatian tourism from these countries may have suffered, but the opposite in fact has been the case.
Slovenia, which accounted for almost 10% of all tourists to Croatia in 2014, was up 7% for the first seven months of 2015. The biggest increase was from BiH (32%), while the most surprising was Serbia (11%), this despite Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandr Vucic calleing on Serbs to spend their holidays at home. Montenegro (17%) and Macedonia (14%) were also sharply up.
