In July, Zagreb was visited by 17 percent more tourists

Zagreb is recording increasingly better tourism results due to a more diverse and quality year-round, including summer, offering of events and accommodation, greater transport accessibility, and promotion, which is reflected in the data for July this year, when the Croatian capital was visited by 17 percent more tourists, achieving 29 percent more overnight stays than in the same month last year.

This is the assessment of Zlatan Muftić, the deputy director of the Zagreb Tourist Board (TZGZ), who emphasizes that the July results, as well as those for the entire Croatian tourism sector, are excellent and have erased or reduced the deficits from the first half of this year. For the first seven months of this year, Zagreb has thus, according to initial data from the Tourist Board, ended with a 2 percent increase, with a total of 326.1 thousand tourist arrivals, and 1 percent fewer overnight stays, or almost 579 thousand. Significant increases in July this year in Zagreb were achieved with almost 68 thousand tourist arrivals and 123.6 thousand overnight stays. Of these, 88 percent of arrivals (almost 60 thousand) and overnight stays (almost 108 thousand) were achieved by foreign tourists, who have thus increased in Zagreb by as much as 21 and 35 percent compared to last July. Although there were 6 and 3 percent fewer domestic tourists and their overnight stays, Muftić still considers these results good, especially since Zagreb is traditionally not a destination for domestic tourists during the summer months, who tend to travel more to the Adriatic or abroad.

He does not consider such results coincidental but rather a result of the increasing number of promotional activities by TZGZ in more and more markets, quality promotional materials (in more than 15 foreign languages), and more interesting events in Zagreb, which this July particularly ‘abounded’. Tourists were certainly drawn to Zagreb by the concert of Leonard Cohen, as well as the traditional folklore festival, numerous international exhibitions, Summer Evenings, and other events, while favorable and quality accommodation and food, along with a dozen types and ways of city tours, including the night tours introduced this year, kept them in the city. Among foreign tourists in July, there was a notable 16 percent increase in arrivals from Spaniards, who are at the top of the list, followed by Germans, French, and tourists from the USA, Poland, the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, and Russia. Regarding the Russians, he notes that they were particularly surprising as their numbers increased by as much as 130 percent. Until the end of the year, Muftić believes in good tourist traffic, considering that congresses and other business gatherings will begin in the fall, several mega concerts by world musicians have been announced, as well as the traditional Advent in Zagreb, and low-cost airlines continue to operate flights to Zagreb Airport, making Zagreb more accessible than in previous years. (H)