Cappelli: Interest in the Croatian Initiative for the EU Tourism Fund is Growing

The initiative to establish an EU tourism fund is gaining increasing interest among member states and has already received support from Bulgaria, Malta, Italy, Austria, and Germany, reported Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli at the ITB tourism fair in Berlin, who initiated this initiative.

“We discussed this initiative at ITB with the Chairman of the Tourism Committee of the German Bundestag, Sebastian Munzenmaier, who announced that he would initiate a discussion on this within the committee and within his capabilities. He liked the idea because it is good for tourism, considering that certain funds from this fund would be allocated for programs and investments in tourism, especially in cases such as floods or other extraordinary circumstances,” explained Cappelli.

>>> Cappelli presented a unique initiative for the establishment of the EU tourism fund

He added that this would provide a secure fund for tourism at the EU level from which funds could be compensated for other tourism projects of EU member states.

“For Croatia, this would be beneficial, for example, for launching some new programs, investments, and flight routes, as we currently do not have direct routes with Bulgaria, Malta, and some other countries. With this fund, we would all be better connected within Europe or the EU,” Cappelli stated.

After discussions with Cappelli at the Croatian stand at ITB regarding this initiative and the overall tourism cooperation between Croatia and Germany, Sebastian Munzenmaier told Croatian journalists that he would discuss this initiative with the German Minister of Economy as soon as possible.

>>> Cappelli: We are working on a new flight program for Croatia

“The initiative is interesting and certainly deserves attention, as does tourism as a sector, although ultimately everything will be decided in Brussels. Croatia is very familiar to me; I have been to Istria and hope to come again this summer,” he said.

Cappelli added that we still need to wait for the establishment of a new coalition government in Germany in the next ten days.

“We are now ‘rushing’ around this and talking as much as possible to initiate discussions and inform as many countries as possible, for which we do not have much time, as work is currently underway on the EU budget for the next seven years. We have about two months to try to maximize this,” Cappelli stated.

He also announced that many activities would be directed towards distant markets, such as China and Korea, where HTZ offices are planned to be opened in Shanghai and Seoul by the end of this year.

>>> Cappelli: After the record year of 2017, we expect a slowdown in tourist traffic and a challenging 2018.

“Since many tourists from these markets come to Croatia via Dubai, at ITB we discussed at the United Arab Emirates stand about opening a Croatian representative office in Dubai, a consulate, or something similar as soon as possible, which could also expedite the visa system through Dubai for Chinese and Koreans,” Cappelli said.

The minister praised the efforts of Croatian destinations in developing health tourism, which had an exceptionally large presence and attention at ITB this year, during which the Kvarner Health cluster of health tourism was presented at a special conference.

Additionally, the Croatian conference on this segment of HTI, initiated a few years ago by Zdeslav Radovčić, was the official partner of the convention part of the program on this topic at this year’s ITB, being highlighted as the best and strongest conference on this topic at the European level.