Croatia's national tourist board reported on Friday that the American global travel agency Virtuoso ranked Croatia among top ten most popular countries to visit, in its overall rankings, as well as in the subcategories of emerging destinations and favourite places for millennial travellers.

According to its Virtuoso Luxe Report for 2019 which polled thousands of travel agencies dealing in luxury travel, Croatia ranked 2nd among most popular emerging destinations (behind Japan), 6th most popular destination for Millenial travellers, and 8th in its overall ranking of most popular places to visit in 2019.

“The US market represents one of the leading overseas markets for Croatia’s tourist industry, and this year the country recorded 570,000 arrivals and 1.6 million bed nights by American visitors so far, which is a 23 percent increase year-on-year, so we are happy to see Croatia ranked so highly in the US market,” the director of the national tourist board, Kristjan Stanicic, said in a press release.

He added that the board’s further efforts in bringing in more American visitors involve plans to improve airline connections with the United States.

At the moment there are no direct flights between Croatia and the United States, with only American Airlines announcing a direct seasonal service connecting the southern city of Dubrovnik with Philadelphia, scheduled to launch in June 2019.

Virtuoso is a global travel agency network with more than 17,500 travel advisors at over 1,000 agencies worldwide who specialise in luxury and personalised travel packages.

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