IN THE FIRST half of June, the number of tourist arrivals dropped by 83 percent and overnight stays by 82 percent compared with the same period last year. There were 215,720 arrivals, and 1,033,509 overnight stays from June 1 to June 14 in 2020 in Croatia, as opposed to 1,307,090 arrivals and 5,689,451 overnight stays from June 3 to June 16 in 2019.

The data, which Index acquired from the Croatian National Tourist Board, show a massive drop in arrivals and overnight stays, which surpasses 80 percent.

Jakominic: There are fewer and fewer guests and even no guests at all in some places

Index spoke to Vedran Jakominic, the management board member of the Voice of Entrepreneur Association and vice president of the Croatian Food and Beverage Association, who said that the turnover was down by 4.3 billion kunas compared with last year's figures in the food and beverage industry. 

"We're now at approximately 20 percent of last year's tourist revenue. Bars in Istria and Kvarner are doing relatively well, and we've achieved 55 percent of last year's revenue. It's not easy, but since we're near Slovenia and Italy, we're doing great in comparison to the rest of Croatia. The lower you go in Dalmatia, the situation is worse; it's especially bad in Dalmatia. There are fewer and fewer guests and even no guests at all in some places. I wouldn't know what to do if I had a business in, let's say, the island of Korcula," said Jakominic for Index. 

Besides hoteliers and the food and beverage industry, many small businesses and companies working in the tourism sector are severely affected

The situation is, as he points out, catastrophic. 

"There are no flights to Dubrovnik, and it's hard to travel to Split; it will be very difficult to fill the capacities of accommodation and the food and beverage facilities. We only hope that the situation won't worsen even more. In Istria and Kvarner, the food and beverage industry will perhaps break even at the operating level if we count in the measures. However, that's unlikely for hoteliers, and especially for seasonal workers, unless local communities help them out. The government grants really helped us to avoid accumulated loss," said Jakominic. 

Besides the food and beverage industry, hoteliers, and private accommodation providers, he pointed out other tourism sectors that also suffer huge losses, although they're not mentioned in public. 

Those are the distributors of beers, wine, ice creams, souvenir shops, newsstands, businesses offering accommodation cleaning and laundry services, parking services, beach concessions… He also states that many other economic entities will suffer huge losses due to the drastic decline of tourists. 

"As the season progresses, we'll see the overall extent of the crisis even more. In the general economy, the result will be catastrophic. It's difficult for everyone dependent on tourism. I hope that elections will quickly pass so that we can focus on real issues," said Jakominic.

"The problem is that we rely too much on tourism" 

Index spoke to Marin Medak, the Croatian Food and Beverage Association Director, who commented on the catastrophic results in June, and said that the warnings have come true. 

"It should be mentioned that June is exceptionally popular among Croats due to several national holidays. These results in June indicate that there were no foreign tourists at all. It was expected that the negative prognoses would come true, which is already happening," said Medak for Index. 

In his words, the problem is that everyone in Croatia relies too much on tourism. 

"The only thing that can save us is reducing value-added tax and continuing the financial grants for those who won't open their bars because that's the only way we can survive. There are so many problems in tourism, and the biggest one is that we rely too much on it; we are constantly warning against it," said Medak. 

Croatian tourism faced a huge slump due to the coronavirus pandemic. The largest number of arrivals was achieved last week when many extended their weekend because of the national holiday Corpus Christi. According to the Croatian National Tourist Board's data, almost 100,000 tourists arrived in Croatia last weekend from June 11 to June 15, and there were 511,000 overnight stays. 

Domestic travelers second in the number of arrivals

Croatian National Tourist Board claims that around 70 percent of tourists were foreigners, i.e., more than 70,000 according to the e-visitor data. They've made 380,000 overnight stays, mostly tourists from Germany, Slovenia, Austria, and the Chech Republic. 

Domestic tourists were second in the number of arrivals, behind German tourists. All of them stayed in camps, then in private accommodations and hotels. Rovinj, Vir, Mali Losinj, Medulin, Umag, and Porec were the destinations with the most overnight stays. 

Croatia Airlines increases the number of flights 

Croatian air traffic has been connecting with many European and other destinations again these days. Croatia Airlines has increased the number of flights in June, so the CA airplanes connect Zagreb with 11 international destinations as of mid-June.

Croatia Airlines returned the flights on Zagreb - Zürich route as of June 8, and as of June 15, they restored the direct international routes from Zagreb to seven more European destinations - München, Sarajevo, London Heathrow, Dublin, Rome, Bruxelles i Vienna.

Ryanair announced that as of July 1, they are restarting flights from Zagreb to 10 routes during the summer schedule. Ryanair told that, since Croatia restarted the international air traffic, they want to encourage tourists to start planning their summer vacation. As everyone is hoping, all of that should positively affect the touristic season, but it's clear that Croatia will continue to suffer huge losses because the last year's numbers aren't even remotely going to be achieved.