Croatian Government Steps Up Efforts to Increase Tourism

The Croatian government is once again stepping up its efforts to attract increasing tourism to the country, the industry having been heavily hit by the international downturn.

The latest efforts are an online campaign centred around the website www.welcometocroatia.com.hr. The aim of the campaign is to bring people online to discuss Croatia's tourism qualities.

Croatia acted quickly to the international downturn; increasing its budget for tourism promotion by a factor of three to 28 million Euros. Still, tourism to Croatia fell 9% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year, receiving 1.8million visitors during this time.

This is a smaller drop than its biggest competitors (Italy, Greece and Spain) experienced, the government is conscious of the fact that it must stay on top of the situation to continue beating the competition.

"Our main goal for this season is to be equal or better than our competition," said Tourism Minister Damir Bajs, stressing that so-called last-minute bookings would be decisive.

Croatia needs to attract at least 3.5million per quarter this quarter and next (high season), and then at least the same as the first quarter in the last quarter to avoid a drop from last year's total of 11 million. I'm sure that Croatia's government will be happy with 2.5million per quarter for the next 2.

That said, competition is likely to intensify as the Pound strengthens against the Euro. Places like Croatia have lost ground to those outside the Eurozone like Turkey in recent months because of the strong Euro.