In the first forty projects of the private sector for which contracts have been signed for financing from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO) from the tourism sector, we counted as many as sixteen new hotels in the Croatian market. These are investments worth around one hundred million euros that will receive about 46 million euros in non-repayable funds from the NPOO as part of the call ‘Strengthening sustainability and promoting green and digital transition of entrepreneurs in the tourism sector’, with different percentages of investment coverage depending on the project. Some of them will arise from extensions or repurposing, reconstruction of existing facilities, and there are also several projects from scratch, with a large portion of them located in less developed tourist destinations, including the mainland.
Other projects include the green transition of existing hotels or the introduction of new content, or they are projects of digital transformation, introducing artificial intelligence solutions or other smart solutions in various segments of tourism, from nautical to hotel operations. As we learn from the Ministry of Tourism, within this call for privately owned companies, 248 project proposals have been submitted, and the available allocation amounts to 166 million euros. So far, contracts have been signed for forty projects, ten are in the signing phase, and nine are in the approval process, so there will be a total of 59. Within the Call ‘Regional diversification and specialization of Croatian tourism through investments in the development of high value-added tourist products’, that is, the call for the public sector, a total of 220 project proposals have been submitted, they tell us at the Ministry, and the allocation amounts to 123.4 million euros.
– Since these are large projects, and the maximum value of support was even 17.2 million euros, the secured funds were not sufficient to finance all those who met the eligibility criteria from the mentioned public call of the NPOO, so the Government, recognizing the importance of health tourism and its contribution to achieving strategic goals, secured funds in the state budget that will enable financing of all projects that met the criteria for financing according to the published call – they reveal to us at the Ministry.
Croatian spas and special hospitals are thus awaiting extensive works. Decisions on financing and notifications that the project is on the priority list have been made for the project of reconstructing the Inkey castle with an approved support of 10.1 million euros. For the construction of a pool and hotel at the Special Hospital for Medical Rehabilitation Stubičke Toplice, support of 16.5 million euros has been approved, for improving the quality of accommodation and content at the Minerva hotel – Varaždinske Toplice 17.1 million euros, 13.1 million euros goes to Daruvarske Toplice, and the project for improving accommodation capacities and infrastructure at the Special Hospital Naftalan in the function of developing health tourism ‘Welltur Naftalan’ from the NPOO receives 1.6 million euros. For the reconstruction of the Fontana building into a hotel in the function of health tourism, Toplice Lipik received 12.8 million euros non-repayable, and for improving the quality of existing services in health tourism and introducing new ones, the Special Hospital for Orthopedics Biograd na Moru receives 2.6 million euros.
