The Ministry of Tourism and the Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ) expect similar tourist traffic for the Easter weekend as last year’s Easter, when around 120 thousand tourists arrived, with increases expected in the Adriatic counties and some continental ones.
“We believe that this Easter we will repeat at least last year’s figures, bearing in mind that last year Easter was calendar-wise two weeks later,” said Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli.
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He also stated that the results could depend on the weather forecast, meaning better or worse weather, but not in four and five-star hotels that are open and practically fully booked.
The director of the HTZ Main Office, Kristjan Staničić, shares similar expectations, adding that during the Easter extended weekend, increases in traffic compared to the same holiday weekend last year are forecasted for the Split-Dalmatia, Zadar, Šibenik-Knin, Dubrovnik-Neretva, and Lika-Senj counties, as well as for continental counties.
If last year’s level of physical tourist traffic were to be achieved, it would mean that there will be more than 120 thousand tourists in Croatia for the extended Easter weekend and more than 400 thousand overnight stays.
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“Easter is informally considered the beginning of the main part of the tourist year in Croatia, so in this sense, we expect a positive impact of the extended Easter weekend on tourism trends. Since we expect similar figures as last year’s Easter with increases in certain counties, that would be a very good and positive result,” emphasizes Staničić.
He adds that Croatian tourism has recorded an increase in tourist traffic of nearly 10 percent in arrivals and overnight stays so far this year.
Positive trends are also expected throughout April, which last year ‘brought’ Croatia 934 thousand tourists and nearly 2.7 million overnight stays.
