During the first part of the summer season, Croatia managed to open its doors for tourism more quickly than other countries which also rely heavily on it did, and positioned itself better on its emitting markets. But what year would be the most comparable to the 2020 Croatian tourist season?
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes on the 8th of September, 2020, in a year in which tourism will lose at least a trillion dollars in revenue globally, setting the sector back 20 years, Croatia has so far come out with a slightly better result, especially when compared to competitors from the Mediterranean.
With about 46 million overnight stays realised from the beginning of the year to the end of August, the 2020 Croatian tourist season is currently at about 51 percent of the number of overnight stays realised when compared to last year, and the total annual result could reach the level of 2005 when the country had 51 million overnight stays, with 6 billion euros having been earned. Revenue this year will depend on the structure of spending, about which there are no estimates so far, and last year it stood at 12 billion euros.
The Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ) published a comparison of the results of the 2020 Croatian tourist season for the usually hit month of July on Monday, and the official figures are currently also in in Spain, Turkey, Cyprus and Portugal. In July, Spain accounted for only 25 percent of last year’s turnover, Portugal accounted 17 percent, Cyprus 12 percent and Turkey 14 percent.
Although the figures for August aren’t yet official, all these countries with tourist traffic started later this year than Croatia did, and saw some significant traffic in the eighth month of 2020, but this was abruptly stopped by the closing of various borders and introducing quarantine in the last week of August. For comparison, Croatia realised about 2.5 million foreign arrivals in July (50 percent of what was realised back in July 2019), as well as almost 15.7 million foreign overnight stays (60 percent). In the first seven months of 2020, the country realised about 26.3 million foreign overnight stays, 42 percent of last year’s traffic. August was even better for the 2020 Croatian tourist season according to the latest official data, as Croatia had about 2.3 million arrivals and 17.6 million overnight stays by August the 23rd, which is 67 percent of last year’s result. By the end of August, it was estimated that a total of 20 million overnight stays had been acheived.
The Greek tourism sector estimates that it will end this year with tourism revenues of about 3 billion euros, which is 6 times less than it realised last year. Italy expects a loss of 36.7 billion euros in tourism, with a drop in consumption from foreign tourists of 82 percent when compared to last year, equal to an astounding 100 million euros a day, according to the World Tourism Council (WTTC). The CNTB pointed out that in the first part of the summer season, Croatia managed to open up to tourists much faster than what was the case with other countries. At the same time, it positioned itself better on emitting markets than all the countries covered by the analysis.
“The CNTB responded in a timely manner, directing its promotional activities and information campaigns to the most important emitting markets. That such a decision was correct is also confirmed by the results achieved by Croatian tourism in July and August, where we’ve recorded the most arrivals and overnight stays from the markets of Germany, Slovenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary,” the CNTB pointed out.
They also believe that very close and continuous communication with representatives of Croatian tourism associations, the Croatian Government and government institutions, as well as diplomacy was crucial.
”Considering the circumstances and the available budgets, we believe that we have all done an excellent job together,” the CNTB concluded when looking back at the 2020 Croatian tourist season.
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