Anyone who has visited Rijeka in the last few years could have noticed luxury yachts in the port, some of which are worth tens or even hundreds of millions of euros, and during the peak of the coronavirus crisis, it seemed that their number increased. In response to Lider’s question about how many yachts are docked daily, Sonja Tešić, head of the Office of the Director of the Port Authority of Rijeka, provided us with the information that there are up to twenty large yachts ranging from 20 to 93 meters in length docked in Rijeka port daily, but that their number varies from day to day and that the coronavirus crisis did not directly affect it.
However, for unknown reasons, we did not easily obtain information about the docking fees for yachts in Rijeka port and the revenue generated from docking fees in 2019. Only after a seven-day correspondence, just before the publication of this issue, did Captain Rajko Jurman, head of the Commercial Affairs Department of the Port Authority of Rijeka, respond to our insistence on the amount of revenue generated, stating that the total revenue from yacht docking in 2019 was around two million kuna. However, we could not ascertain whether this was an increase or decrease compared to previous years. We found information on yacht docking prices online, which Captain Jurman confirmed, stating that a 25-meter yacht pays a fee of 26 kuna per meter per day, and if it stays docked, for example, for seven days, the Port Authority needs to be paid 4550 kuna. The price decreases further if the yacht stays docked longer. If it stays longer than 120 days, the price for that category per meter per day is only 13 kuna. When asked if this is too low compared to global competition, Captain Jurman responds that the prices are affordable as Rijeka is just trying to position itself as a global nautical destination.
