Brnjac: Croatia is safe destination, Portuguese scenario should be avoided

Tourism Minister Nikolina Brnjac said on Wednesday the 330,000 tourist arrivals over the past long weekend proved that Croatia was a safe destination, but called for remaining responsible in order to avoid the Portuguese scenario.

Brnjac told the press citizens should also be vaccinated against COVID-19 in light of the tourist season and that they should keep in mind that the virus was still present.

Portugal has big problems because of the delta variant and is partly closed, she said.

Brnjac said ministry representatives would meet with local officials on Saturday to see what was being done to deal with the pandemic. Recently, she asked them not to organise big events.

Tourists are looking for safe destinations and this year safety is key in choosing a destination, she said.

"It's important that there are no hotspots of the disease because if there is one, we realise what that means for our season. We must be responsible and vaccinate as many people as possible."

Over the long weekend of 18-23 June, Croatia registered 330,000 arrivals and 1.6 million overnights, including 46,000 tourists arriving from Germany, 41,000 from Slovenia, 31,000 from Austria and 24,000 from Poland.

The average daily number of tourists over the long weekend was 313,000, whereas last year there were 104,000 fewer.

Istria County registered the most nights (475,000), followed by Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (322,000), Split-Dalmatia County (258,000) , Zadar County (233,000) and Šibenik-Knin County (105,000).

This June, Croatia has registered two million tourist arrivals and 8.4 million nights, up 57% and 58% respectively on the year.

Text: Hina

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