TOURIST ABSURD: Bus Transfer from Krk to Opatija More Expensive than a Flight from Frankfurt

In a well-coordinated media diversion, scenes of unfortunate tourists dragging their luggage several hundred meters to the bus at Krk airport circulated in Croatia and beyond, as the evil director of Rijeka Airport, Tomislav Palalić, arbitrarily raised the prices for agency buses overnight. It doesn’t matter that this price increase does not apply to tourists but to the travel agency that organized their arrival, including the transfer from the airport to the final destination.

And the price increases were indeed drastic. The annual permit for taxi drivers increased from 825 to 1800 euros, and the seasonal subscription for shuttle and occasional transport rose from 825 to 2900 euros… This price list was introduced by Palalić on April 3 and has been in effect since that day. Only a month later, last Friday, a counterattack followed. The County Chamber of Crafts, the Association of Croatian Travel Agencies, and the Kvarner Tourist Board summoned journalists and requested the return of the old price list, while also ‘suggesting’ to the airport owners to put the issue of management or the operation of the Management Board on the agenda.

A Show for Television

To make everything more convincing, the next day a theatrical performance was organized for television: tourists from Frankfurt had to walk to the airport ramp because the bus from the agency Katarina Line did not come to the terminal. Interestingly, this is an agency that has not even paid the ‘old price’ for parking for the entire past year. Regardless, after the report in the central TV news, Palalić immediately on Monday,’following consultations’ with the relevant ministry, reverted to the old prices. The new price list will only be in effect from the next season, and Palalić ‘survived’ the Supervisory Board meeting on Tuesday, but it is uncertain what will happen when the majority owner (the state) finally appoints its representative.

Thus, the latest tourist ‘scandal and shame’ has been resolved. To be clear, I have no intention of defending Palalić’s move. However, in the orchestrated action ‘against price increases,’ his cry was not heard – that agencies charge exorbitantly for transport from the airport to the destination, leaving airport buses and vans empty. Thus, we learn that one travel agency charges two euros per kilometer for transport to the destination. This is a rate that even Zagreb taxi drivers, from Uber to Zagreb Taxi, would envy. For example, the airport bus to Rijeka costs 15 euros, while the agency price for that distance would be around 50 euros. The transport to Opatija is even steeper. If it was the same rate in Saturday’s case, tourists from Frankfurt paid (but as part of the arrangement) – 80 euros! For that money, one could also get a plane ticket from Frankfurt and other European destinations.

What is the Real Scandal and Shame

This ‘scandal and shame,’ and actually the tourist greed, is not really being discussed. The price lists of hotels and private renters are untouchable. It is absurd that the tourism sector, which meticulously inflated prices before last year’s season, protested against the unjustified and illogical price increase at Krk airport, all the way to a 24.2 percent annual increase in accommodation prices in June. Therefore, in July, there was a decrease of 3.4 percent, or about a million fewer overnight stays compared to the pre-pandemic 2019. The season was salvaged by lowering prices, so last minute deals were significantly cheaper than inflated starting prices. Even before last summer, German statisticians declared Croatia almost twice as expensive as the cheapest Turkey. This would not be problematic if Croatian services on the Adriatic were 90 percent better in quality.

Unfortunately, we all know that this is not the case. In Croatia, more than half of tourist traffic falls on the cheapest tourism – cimerfraj (37 percent) and camps (20 percent). Adding to this that tourist room rentals are the most tax-efficient activity in Croatia, we come to the responsibility of the state, which encourages this but reacts to parking price increases. Let us just remember the annual uproar raised against hospitality providers and the price of coffee on Stradun, and more dramatic treatises have been written about the price of a scoop of ice cream on the Adriatic than about the inflation of basic tourist services – from complete arrangements to the prices of the most obscure rooms and individual services such as ‘transfer to the destination.’

Tourism as an Inflation Generator

Tourism has become the main generator of inflation in the last year. To be fair, it all started with energy prices, and when the government put them under control, food price increases fueled inflation. However, in the last year, hoteliers have been more ruthless than the food industry. Therefore, it would be wiser for all ministries and other state and quasi-state bodies to deal with tourism as a whole, rather than protect those who fish in murky waters. After all, an agency that charges ‘transfer to the destination’ two euros per kilometer with the new price list for ‘high-frequency users’ of Krk airport would have already charged the annual entry fee to the airport by transporting about twenty tourists to Opatija and back!