Despite the spread of coronavirus across Europe, Croatian tourism professionals believe that next year Croatia could see a similar tourist season to this year's, stressing that destination safety will be key because it will be the main motive to travel.

Writing in the newsletter of the Croatian Tourism Association (HUT), HUT Director Veljko Ostojic says that, looking from today’s perspective, the Croatian tourist industry could achieve a better result next year.

Last month 208,000 tourists visited Croatia, generating 1.1 million overnight stays. This brought the total number of tourist arrivals to 7.6 million and the number of overnight stays to 53.6 million in January-October 2020, which is 50% of the figures for the same period last year, according to HUT.

HUT also noted the data recently published by Eurostat according to which Croatia generated the highest volume of tourist arrivals and overnight stays in the Mediterranean in the January-July period of 2020, or the smallest decline compared with the same period of 2019.

“Next year, too, the main motive to travel will be safety in the broadest sense of the word, so we need to make an effort and be a safe travel destination. We should do our homework as we did this year, and that is that we did not have a single case of new infection in commercial accommodation establishments,” Ostojic said.

He noted that this year Croatia had been visited by tourists who had visited it before as well as by new ones who until recently had chosen other Mediterranean destinations and could now be expected to come back next year as well.