Croatia most popular destination for Slovenian tourists

Croatia is the most popular destination for Slovenian tourists, with 1.1 million Slovenians having visited the country in 2013, with 62% of all private trips abroad having been made to Croatia, which is traditionally among the most important tourism markets for Slovenia. This was said at a meeting held by Croatian Tourism Minister Darko Lorencin and Slovenian Minister of Economic Development and Technology Metod Dragonja, held in Groznjan, Istria County, on Friday. The two ministers discussed the tourism cooperation between the two countries, notably with regard to cooperation on remote markets. Lorencin and Dragonja described the cooperation on third markets as very successful, saying that in the coming period the cooperation would be stepped up on the markets of Japan and Brazil.

Croatia is the most popular destination for Slovenian tourists, with 1.1 million Slovenians having visited the country in 2013, with 62% of all private trips abroad having been made to Croatia, which is traditionally among the most important tourism markets for Slovenia.

This was said at a meeting held by Croatian Tourism Minister Darko Lorencin and Slovenian Minister of Economic Development and Technology Metod Dragonja, held in Groznjan, Istria County, on Friday. The two ministers discussed the tourism cooperation between the two countries, notably with regard to cooperation on remote markets.

The 1.1 million Slovenian arrivals in Croatia in 2013 was an increase of 2.3% from the year before and the 7.6 million overnight stays they made was an increase of 2.9%. Slovenia is the second largest tourism-generating market for Croatia, after Germany. Most of the Slovenian tourists visiting Croatia stayed in camps, and most of them vacationed in the region of Istria.

In the first five months of this year, 203,000 Slovenians visited Croatia, generating 620,000 overnight stays, up 12% and 5.4% respectively from the same period of last year.

In 2013, Croatia was the fourth tourism-generating market for Slovenia, with 118,772 Croatians visiting the neighbouring country, up 4.5% from 2012. They generated 296,966 overnight stays, 0.2% down from the year before.

Lorencin and Dragonja described the cooperation on third markets as very successful, saying that in the coming period the cooperation would be stepped up on the markets of Japan and Brazil.

Lorencin recalled that the two countries' tourism boards were already conducting a joint tourism promotion campaign in remote markets under the slogan "Experience Croatia, feel Slovenia" and that joint activities had so far been organised in India, Japan, Israel, China, Brazil and Korea. By the end of the year, joint presentation activities are planned to be organised in Taiwan and Japan.

Speaking of cooperation on new remote markets, Dragonja said they were having problems with the visa policy and that they would have to ensure a more efficient issuing of visas.

Answering a reporter's question about joint EU projects, Dragonja said that so far 16 EU projects had been implemented, for which around 12 million euros had been drawn.

(Hina)

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