Croatia is a great example on how to react amid COVID-19 in terms of tourism, the President of the European Travel Commission (ETC) Luís Araújo has stressed.
According to him, during the current COVID-19 crisis, the most important thing is to open tourism as well as the borders of the EU countries, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Araújo’s comments came during the 101st meeting held between the Board of Directors of the European Travel Commission (ETC) in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The main focus of the meeting was the tourism sector.
“I notice better and better tourism trends, tourism is recovering, but we still have to reach the results from 2019, which was a record year for many European countries. We exchanged our experiences and knowledge, and Croatia is a great example of how to react in these circumstances,” Araújo pointed out.
During the meeting, it was also discussed about the tourism sector results during this tourist season.
In the meeting held on Thursday, the Director of the Croatian National Tourist Board and ETC Vice President Kristjan Staničić stressed that this year the Balkan country is significantly closer to the tourism figures reached in 2019, before the spread of the Coronavirus.
Staničić stressed that Croatia is among Europe’s most successful countries in terms of achieved tourism results “which is the success of the entire tourism sector, but also the Government of the Republic of Croatia.”
“We are currently at about 77 per cent of the results achieved in the same period in 2019. We will follow new trends and adjust our activities to be even more successful in the future”, Staničić pointed out.
He emphasized that the good tourist trends in Croatia are expected to continue during the off-season.
In July this year, Staničić had said that the country’s tourism tendencies were going in the right direction, while he believed that this tourist season would help this sector recover from the damages caused by the virus.
In order to help the tourism industry, in January this year, the EU allocated about €202 million to Croatia’s government in order to help companies engaged in the tourism sector get out of the crisis provoked by the virus.
Croatia opened its doors to travellers wishing to enter the country for non-essential purposes such as tourism immediately after the end of the first COVID-19 wave. However, travellers are currently required to follow specific requirements when planning to enter Croatia.
The country keeps entry requirements in place following the European Center For Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recommendation. Other territories are divided into the green, orange, red, dark red and grey categories, taking into account the epidemiological situation in them.
Authorities in Croatia previously stressed that travellers from Schengen Zone and European Economic Area countries are allowed to visit Croatia, provided they hold a valid EU Digital COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate.
However, travellers from territories that have recently reported high COVID-19 infection rates will be banned from entering Croatia.
