Tourism Minister Nikolina Brnjac warned on Thursday, at an online conference titled "The Future of Zagreb after the Earthquake -- The Architectural Perspective", about a drop of 26% in the number of tourists and of 31% in the number of overnights stays in the first nine months of 2020 compared to 2019.
She also said that the urban tourism of the capital city would be seeing a continuous growth this years if it had not been hit by the earthquake and the COVID-19 pandemic.
She recalled that Zagreb had recorded a two-digit increase in tourism turnover in the previous period.
The damage caused by the March 22 earthquake has been estimated, she said, at HRK 86 billion, which is about 60% of the annual state budget.
According to Brnjac, the main precondition for tourism to recover to its previous levels is carrying out a structural renovation of the buildings, and not only doing basic construction works.
An opportunity for the tourism in Zagreb and its environs to recover is the development of special forms of tourism, especially health tourism, enogastronomic tourism, cultural tourism, rural tourism and protected area tourism, Brnjac said at the four-day online conference, organised by the Zagreb Society of Architects (DAZ). (Hina)
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