Numbers are slowly but surely going up, new Maritime Demesne and Seaports Act should help with future investments
Maritime Demesne and Seaports Act
Contrary to popular opinion, which was also expressed in the article we are quoting, Croatian nautical tourism is not one of our most competitive tourism products because of the fact that still 70% of our income comes only from betrhs and only 30 % from auxiliary services (F&B, repairs, entertainment), but we are still one of the leading European nautical destinations.
This is due mostly to our unique island archipelago and natural beauty, however, things are moving in the right direction. Slowly but surely. Leila Krešić Jurić, director of the tourism sector in the Croatian Chamber of Economy commented on the positive trends in Croatian nautical tourism for Poslovni Plus on February 20, 2016.
“Last year’s results prove that we are indeed going in the right direction when it comes to nautical tourism. Number of chartered boats is up by 4,5% compared to 2014 with 63 820 chartes while the total number of boats available in charter has increased by 3,3%“ Krešić Jurić states.
Charter companies have registered 362.589 arrivals (4,5% more than the year before) with 2,56 million overnight stays (4% more than in 2014). Average yachtsmen coming to Croatia is 45 years old (on average) and 77% are highly educated. Every second yachtsman comes from a household with a monthly income that exceedes 3500 eur and in 2012 (that was the last year in which these surveys were conducted) they were spending 100 eur per day on average (transfers and airfare not included): „all available data shows that daily spending of yachtsmen is much higher than that of other guests hence their contribution to the total Croatian tourism earnings is significant“ Branimir Mađer from the Croatian Chamber of Economy added.
For years, Croatian Chamber of Economy has been following and representing the needs of the nautical sector, and improvements have been made when it comes to legislatives and regulations especially when it comes to defining terms and conditions for charter agencies in the period when Croatia joined the EU: „We still have a lot of work to do in developing the new Maritime Demesne and Seaports Act which should finally remove all the obstacles for further developments in nautal tourism, especially when it comes to investments in nautical infrastructure“ Leila Krešić Jurić added noting also that the Croatian Chamber of Economy has intensified its cooperation with the Croatian National Tourism Board regarding the promotion of nautical tourism.
