June 7, 2020 – Hostels could be the most affected by the corona crisis in the tourism sector, and hundreds have sprung up in Croatia in recent years. There are forty hostels in Split alone, all of which are mostly empty.
HRT reports that guests who stay in hostels, mostly young people arriving by plane from overseas countries, will hardly be able to come this summer, so many hostels are threatened with closure.
Antea is the owner of two hostels in Split. At the end of last season, she invested her earnings in a food bar. Now there are no earnings, and the bills for rent and utilities are piling up.
“Our guests are Americans, Australians, Canadians, and British, I would say 90%, which is a huge percentage, and a few Europeans will come. I don’t know how much of the season we will save along the way,” says Antea Ćurin.
It is not just a matter of the owners’ troubles, as jobs are also questionable.
Last year, Split hostels with about 1,300 beds recorded more than 115,000 overnight stays. All of these rooms are now empty, as is the city center where most are located.
“We would already be full, we planned to start on April 1 this year and by May 1 it would already be a full season,” says Antonia Dora Ferić, the hostel manager.
A returnee from Germany has invested almost one million kuna in the renovation of this hostel, restaurant and another facility just for this season.
“And what will happen now, I don’t know. I guess we will have to survive and not sink, or something like that. That’s my forecast, and even when you look around, everything is still quiet. No foreign voices are heard yet,” points out Ćiro Sabljić, a hostel owner in Split.
Savings are wasted and prices have been lowered. However, there are no guests, so most of the 80 hostels in the county will not survive the year. Thus, the Split-Dalmatia County Hostel Group called an emergency meeting for survival at the beginning of the week.The solution remains to be seen.
You can watch the full video on HRT
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