In the last six years, Croatia's 11 nature parks and eight national parks registered 17.4 million visitors, and in 2017 alone there were four million tourists in those destinations, it was said at a conference on Croatia's protected natural areas and tourism in Zagreb last Tuesday.

Croatia boasts great biological diversity, according to the conclusions of the event, organised by the Jutarnji List daily.

Addressing the event, Environment Protection Minister Tomislav Coric said that the number of visitors to the national and nature parks was rising by the year.

The purpose of many projects is to attract more visitors to the parks that are not among the most sought-after, the minister said.

Contracts have been signed for 18 projects worth HRK 686.8 million (around EUR 92 million) for the management of protected natural areas, and two more projects are in the pipeline, it was said.

The conference discussed ways to encourage green tourism and preserve the parks’ scenery and ecosystems.

(EUR 1 = HRK 7,4032)