As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, many predictions were made about summer 2021 for Croatia, and some were a little less negative about it than others, but the optimists who claimed that this summer would end being just a little worse than the summer of record 2019 were few and far between, reports Slobodna Dalmacija.
”I looked at the statistics yesterday and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I compared them to those from the same period back in 2019 and concluded that there are only 12 percent fewer guests in Makarska today than there were back during that prosperous pre-pandemic year. In Makarska we have 43 percent higher tourist results than we did during the same period last year!” stated Tonci Lalic from the Tourist Board of the City of Makarska, adding that the current issue of guests struggling to find places to stay is very real.
”In the age of online reservations, our guests, just like before, physically come to the tourist boards and travel agencies and look for accommodation. Who could have known they’d start doing that given the fact that it has been so long since people did it that way. They come here begging to be helped and they just agree to everything. They’d also spend the night in some accommodation unit somewhere below the hill, just to have it dealt with. We’re witnessing a huge influx of tourists,” explained Lalic as the last minute Croatian holiday phenomenon continues.
In Split, the situation is such that guests agree to rent basement space and ancillary facilities, and the owners suddenly evict tenants from their apartments, aware that, due to a poor assessment of the season that surprised everyone, they should have received tourists and not played it “safely” with longterm tenants. The moment one reservation is cancelled, another is booked, but it also comes with a thirty percent higher price tag.
The catch is that some of the people of Split gave up renting their accommodation units out to tourists last year entirely, so now there’s a lack of apartments. The situation is similar to the one when “Ultra” took place in Split in the first few years, and there weren’t enough tourist beds available. That’s why those hurt by the pandemic and hoping to make some quick and effortless cash are looking to seize the moment and charge prices which go beyond any logic.
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