Meeting of Croatian Government and Tourist Employees

The Minister of the Sea, Tourism, Transport and Development Božidar Kalmeta said that the year 2006 was another successful tourist year for Croatia, mostly based on a longer lasting tourist season. This was pointed out at a meeting attended by representatives of the Croatian Government as well as by tourist employees, organized during the annual “Croatian Tourism Day”, in the town of Cavtat.

According to Kalmeta, those were the results of a successful cooperation between the public and private sector, this year's investment of EUR 1 billion into Croatia's tourism as well as the intensive fight against the further spreading of grey economy. He added that by the end of 2006 the expected number of tourist arrivals was more than 10 million tourists along with an income of over EUR 6 billion.

He also added that the goals for next year would be to maintain the position of an attractive, authentic, well-preserved, safe and hospitable tourist destination which offers an original tourist product, along with intensive promotional activities on traditional as well as new markets such as the USA, Russia, Japan and other. Announcing upcoming promotional activities, Niko Bulić, the Director of the Head Office of the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ), said that the HTZ would be present at 65 markets and 19 special national presentations.

By the year 2007, Croatia plans to register the same number of tourist arrivals with a possible increase by 2%, along with a 3-5% increase in financial incomes. Other important elements will be the ongoing privatization of the remaining tourist companies, still mostly owned be the state, as well as the construction of new and the reconstruction of existing accommodation objects. Kalmeta concluded that Greenfield projects would also be of special importance in the future development of Croatian tourism. 

Talking about the economic development of the country, Kalmeta mentioned that the industry of tourism was very important in creating new job opportunities and in increasing the living standard of Croatian citizens. The year 2007 would be marked by further investments in the infrastructure as well as in the development of tourism in the inner part of the country.

Figures regarding the increase of the BDP, based on outstanding results achieved in tourism this year, were presented by the Minister of Finance Ivan Šuker.

The State Secretary for Tourism Zdenko Mičić pointed out how important it was to educate well-trained professionals for the tourist sector. He said that it was necessary to create a closer cooperation between tourist companies and the state in order to invest more in the training of tourist employees.