Croatia's national tourist board HTZ celebrated its 30th birthday on Tuesday, state news platform Hina reported, carrying a press release from HTZ in which they described themselves as "working on creating and promoting the identity and image of the Croatian tourist industry at home and abroad and positioning Croatia as a globally recognizable and desired travel destination."

The birthday ceremony was attended by some 400 industry and public figures, including some of the heads of HTZ and tourism ministers, as well as government officials. Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, praised HTZ for “what it has done in the past 30 years” to promote Croatia and make it globally recognizable. He also praised the work of his own government.

“It is fascinating that Croatia hosts five times as many tourists as the size of its native population, and I don’t think there’s another such country in the world. The importance of tourism is seen in GDP, and its relatively quick recovery from the pandemic crisis and despite the war in Ukraine, and the government’s measures also helped that,” Plenkovic said.

He added that Croatia’s membership in the EU’s passport-free travel Schengen Area, which is yet to be formally cleared on 8 December, as well as Croatia joining the euro zone, would benefit tourism. Croatia is expected to join both on 1 January 2023.

“Over the last 30 years HTZ has become a tourism organisation with a network of 17 offices abroad, and one of the pillars of the Croatian tourist industry,” head of HTZ, Kristjan Stanicic, said. He expressed hope that this year’s results for tourist arrivals and overnight stays would reach those from the record-breaking 2019.

Stanicic said that the good trends were expected to continue in 2023 as memberships in the Schengen Area and the euro zone would facilitate arrivals of tourists because Croatia is “still primarily a car destination” and most visitors are coming from the EU and other European countries.

“A lot has been done so far, but we will not be resting on laurels. We are facing new challenges and need to maintain competitiveness,” Stanicic said.

HTZ was established in June 1992, during the 1991-95 war. Slightly over 2 million tourists visited Croatia that year, generating 10 million overnight stays. This year, the number of tourists is projected at 18 million, and overnight stays at over 100 million, which is close to all-time records seen in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.