ZAGREB, July 9, 2019 – In the first six months of 2019, almost 6.9 million tourists visited Croatia and generated 26.2 million bed nights, which were increases of 6% and 3% respectively, compared to the same period in 2018 and all indications in tourism are good, Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli said on Tuesday.
“The first six months were positive in tourism and it is important that in the first three months foreign tourists alone generated 25 million euro more in revenue than for the same period in 2018 and that is in the pre-season when prices are lower,” said Cappelli, who along with the director of the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ) Kristjan Staničić, held a press conference to present the January – June results in tourism.
Noting that official indicators still foresee that the year will conclude with an increase of 2 or 3 percent on the year, Cappelli underscored that he is not worried about the summer season either and particularly not with the post-season considering that that autumn already has good bookings. He said in those places where there were more investments in improving quality, the results and fullness are improving.
He considers that physical numbers (arrivals and bed nights) are important even though revenue is more important.
“Based on the Tourism Strategy to 2020, we have come close to physical numbers but we still haven’t achieved the foreseen 14 billion in revenue for 2020, however we are somewhere in the vicinity of 12 billion euro. We will see how the entire year will end and in 2020, I believe that along with quality we can come close to that,” he said.
Staničić said that the top 10 markets in the past six months were led by Germany, Austria, Slovenia, UK and Poland, which along with the Czech Republic and Slovenia, were the only three countries to record a decrease in Croatian tourism in H1 this year.
More tourism news can be found in the Travel section.
