Croatia Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli believes that the country is turning into an all-year round tourism destination.

The year 2019 could generate a new record for Croatia tourism as foreign tourist arrivals were up by 6% during the first half of the year to reach 5.85 million and 22.93 million overnight stays (+3%). The good performance is due to the increased appeal of Croatia during the pre-season.

“One of the main priorities in the management of our tourism policy is the strengthening of traffic in the pre-season, and the results of this year’s pre-season, like the past years, show that we have managed to reach growth of tourist turnover by 20% in arrivals and 15% in overnight stays in the last three years,” Cappelli said.

The minister is confident that the post-season will experience a similar evolution to the pre-season. Post-season for Croatia runs in September and October. During the third edition of the annual conference “Can the Croatian Tourism 365?”, which brought together a number of domestic and foreign experts, Cappelli commented on efforts to develop year-round tourism, adding that headway had been made in many segments of this sector by high-quality approaches and models to extend the tourist season.

“Ongoing extension of the season was not happening by chance and that it was the result of endeavours by all stakeholders in the tourist trade,” he declared.

One of the most efficient tool to extend the peak tourism season was supported, among other things, by the government’s decision to allocate over US$10.4 million in the last two years for an increase in air traffic, “as a result of this, the flight season has been extended by more than 30 days in both years, bringing more and more tourists to hotels, travel agencies, airports and elsewhere,” said Capelli. Similar measures will be implemented in 2020. From Asia, Korean Air offers a direct service between Zagreb and Seoul.

Photo: Croatia stand at ITB Asia 2019

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