August the 12th, 2023 – Since the beginning of this year’s tourist season, the German media has been picking apart Croatian price hikes, delving into everything from inflation and Eurozone accession to pure greed.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, in addition to those of us who live here who have been shocked by how much everything has shot up in price, tourists have also been very quick to notice those same Croatian price hikes.
The prices for just about everything have risen significantly in the last year, and the German media has been following the situation for some time now. Numerous foreign media outlets have already spoken to some extent or another on several occasions about Croatian price hikes and the astronomical sums of money they’ve had to fork out for all kinds of services.
The German media has so far published headlines such as: “Croatia: the holiday paradise of yesterday – this is how the prices have risen”. Recently, the German portal Kroati.de made a more detailed analysis of the situation on the Croatian Adriatic coast.
TikTok was used to garner people’s views
Among other methods, the portal conducted a survey on its TikTok channel and asked whether Croatia has become expensive, to which 81 percent of 700 users answered yes. The portal stated that Croatian price hikes particularly on the gastronomic scene is the result of investment in infrastructure, as well as rising costs and Croatian Eurozone accession which took place on the 1st of January this year.
Croatian price hikes are visible in everything from restaurants to accommodation
Visiting a restaurant has become a rare luxury experience for many locals due to the rather insane pricing policy. As a result, most establishments based in tourist areas limit their opening hours to the summer months alone, which in turn affects prices. Although some businesses have benefited from Croatian price hikes in the short term, many consumers are still struggling to keep up with the increased costs. Therefore, the further development of this industry in the coming years remains to be seen – the analysis of the aforementioned German portal states.
As for accommodation, the portal states that in some cases, people were charged up to 50 percent more than they were last year, and that’s without any sort of significant improvement in the services offered.
This sudden price adjustment resulted in a sense of astonishment and justified the dissatisfaction of many tourists. Although the early months of 2023 were well booked for the peak summer season (June to September), Croatian price hikes led to a wave of cancellations. This then led to insufficient occupancy levels in accommodation by up to 10% compared to last year. In response to this, many landlords sharply reduced their accommodation prices in the short term once again in order to patch up any gaps they had in reservations – the portal writes.
It has also been stated that many food items are far more expensive in Croatia than they are in Germany or Austria, and all of this together leads to, according to Kroati.de, “a trend of emigration that will continue to increase”, reports Vecernji list.
The tourists, on the other hand, no longer see Croatia as a cheap holiday destination, and now will look elsewhere for other cheaper alternatives. Of course, Croatia is still attractive for many, but in times of inflationary pressures, prices also play a key role. The forecasts for the future don’t look good in our opinion, but we remain optimistic despite the huge increase in prices because we love Croatia – the German portal concludes.
