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Split a popular destination in July

12th August 2011/0 Comments/in Blog, Split, Tourism stats

Split is revelling in statistics that reveal very good visitor numbers for the month of July. With its great transport links by plane, train, bus and ferry, it’s no surprise that many travellers find themselves in the city – unfortunately for Split, however, many simply transit through on to other destinations. To this end, Split has worked hard to increase both visitor numbers and the amount of nights that vistors stay, and it these numbers show that it’s making steps in the right direction.

Statistics reveal that around 50,000 tourists came to Split during the month of July, staying for 155,000 nights in total. This is up 24% on the number of tourist arrivals from July last year, with the number of nights up by 16%. The number of tourist arrivals compared to the number of nights stayed points to the fact that the average stay is more than three days in length.

Split

The director of the Split Tourist Board, Vedran Matosic, reveals that these healthy tourist figures hark back to 1989, the heady (pre-war) days of very large tourist numbers that Croatia longs to return to. As a comparison to more recent years, in July 2009 Split received 29,534 tourists (who stayed for 103,499 nights) which was an increase of 30% to July in the previous year when 40,726 visited (staying for 133,825 nights).

Taking a look at 2011 overall so far, Split welcomed 138,000 visitors who stayed for 350,000 nights, which is up 23% on arrivals and up 10% on nights stayed on the same period in 2010. For both July itself and the whole of 2011, the most frequent visitors came from Germany, and the number of Italian visitors rose by 5% for July and by 10% for January to July.

The Tourist Board director explains that the reason some tourists increased the number of nights they decide to stay in Split may be down to the range of events held in the city this summer. In particular, he points out the large-scale Discotheque Riva club event that takes place this evening, Friday 12th July (featuring famed British electronica band Faithless), as well as the 4-day Days of Diocletian event (held 19th to 22nd August) – a throwback to Roman times.

Despite all this good news in Split regarding visitor numbers, that main problem the city is now facing is a lack of beds. A total of 7,658 beds – plus a further 1,230 places in campsites just outside the city – are quoted as the capacity for the city, although despite fewer beds this year than before, the number of nights has clearly gone up. An increase in private accommodation offerings is said to account for this.

The average price per night for private accommodation in Split is said to be 250 Kunas, which is about £30/€33/$48.

Source: Vjesnik

July’s tourist numbers revealed

8th August 2011/0 Comments/in Blog, Tourism stats

Another month ends, another set of tourism stats come out! Recently released statistics on numbers of tourists to Croatia for the first seven months of the year have hit the Croatian newspapers over the last few days, revealing some rather healthy increases over 2010.

Overall, from January to July 2011, half a million more tourists holidayed in Croatia than in the same period in the previous year. For the month of July alone, 3 million tourists visited the country, which is up 4.8% on the same month in 2010. Of this amount, 2.7 million were foreign tourists – an increase of 5% – meaning that 255,000 of these tourists were domestic, also an increase on July last year of 0.6%.

Tourists stayed for 19.8 million nights this July, which is up by 3% on the previous July. As to be expected, the majority of these were by foreign tourists – 17.5 million, up 3% – whilst 2.2 million nights were by domestic tourists, up 4%.

Despite the many delights of Croatia’s coast, Zagreb in fact achieved the highest increase in visitor numbers, with 10% more this July than last year. This can surely be attributed to the fact that Zagreb – whilst not quite as popular – is clearly gaining ground on Croatia’s Adriatic towns, cities and resorts.

After Zagreb county, Split-Dalmatia posted an increase in visitors of 7.8%, followed by Zadar county (7%), Lika-Senj – home to the Plitvice Lakes National Park (6.3%), Dubrovnik-Neretva (5.7%), Istria (3.4%), Primorje Gorski-Kotar county (2.5%) and Sibenik-Knin county (1.3%). However, of these, Istria recorded the greatest number of visitors and overnight stays during July – 775,000 visitors and 5.8 million nights.

In terms of guest nationalities, the greatest increase was seen amongst Hungarian visitors, with 13.5% more arrivals and 12% more nights stayed. This is followed by Austrian visitors, with 10.6% more arrivals and 9% more nights, and Slovenians, with 5% more arrivals and 6% more nights.

For the first seven months of 2011, Croatia received 6.2 million tourists in total, up 8% on 2010, with these tourists staying for 33 million. For January to July, Split-Dalmatia county received the biggest increase in visitors, with 10.7% more tourists, followed by Lika-Senj (10.3%), then Zagreb (10%) and the county of Zadar (9%). Istria once again was top for visitor numbers and nights stayed – 1.7 million and 10.6 million respectively.

Sources: Vjesnik, Jutarnji, HRT, Vecernji

Zagreb’s Museum of Broken Relationships comes to the Tristan Bates Theatre in London!

20th July 2011/0 Comments/in Blog, Croatia Abroad, Culture, Events

Museum of Broken Relationships

In just under a month’s time, the much talked about Museum of Broken Relationships from Zagreb will be presented at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden, London. Winner of the Kenneth Hudson Award for the most innovative museum in Europe in the European Museum Awards 2011, the Museum displays items donated by people from around the world that symbolise or have had significant meaning in a past relationship.

This summer, the exhibition will be displayed in two venues in London – at the Tristan Bates Theatre and at 38 Earlham Street, both in Covent Garden – and will feature objects from the permanent collection, as well as new donations. The Theatre has also commissioned several artists to create original work inspired by items donated meaning that the exhibition will also be accompanied by some wonderful events featuring music, visual art, drama and interactive live exhibits.

Artists featured will include, amongst others, Booker Prize-winning novelist and poet Ben Okri; agony aunt, writer and broadcaster Imra Kurtz; Zimbabwean-born vocalist and musician Eska Mtungwazi; the Guerilla Dance Project, who mix inventive choreography with social interaction; story-makers Firehouse Creative Productions; and photographer Peter Bennett.

Events taking place during the exhibition’s run include a special First Date Night, with the exhibition open only to couples to their first date; a Ceilidh; Midnight Puppetry; an Outdoor Cinema Screening and much more.

As mentioned above, the Museum is looking for new donations to add to this summer’s exhibition. A unique opportunity to be part of the award-winning exhibition, you can find full details of how to donate here. Donations will be accepted up to 8th August, with select items put on display. Items will be displayed anonymously and cannot be returned.

The exhibition will be open Monday to Saturday 10am to 10pm, and on Sundays 10am to 5pm. Tickets cost £3.50, and are valid for repeat visits within one week of purchase.

Full details of the Museum of Broken Relationships at the Tristan Bates Theatre can be found at www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk/Production_Details_museum_of_broken_relationships.asp.

Tristan Bates Theatre Presents The Museum of Broken Relationships
15th August – 4th September 2011
www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk

Visitor numbers for the first half of 2011 revealed

13th July 2011/0 Comments/in Blog, Tourism stats

Recently revealed statistics for the first six months of the year show show visitor numbers to Croatia and the number of nights that they stayed for, as well as showing some surprising increases in the nationalities of these visitors.

Overall, 3,228,401 tourists came to Croatia in the first half of 2011, which is an increase of 11% on the same period last year. Of this number, 518,776 were domestic tourists – up 6% on 2010, which is a decent upturn after some wobbles for this particular group. The number of foreign tourists visiting the country, meanwhile, rose by 12%.

In total, all tourists stayed for 13,717,095 nights in Croatia, up 12% on 2010. Of this figure, domestic tourists made up 1,672,520 nights, up 11% on the same period in the year before.

These stats also reveal some of the more unusual nationalities visiting Croatia – unusual in the sense that their visitor numbers overall are relatively low, but still growing! (And outside what is considered the “big five” of German, Austrian, Italian, Czech and Slovenian tourists.)

Between January and June of this year, Croatia was visited by 10% more Albanian visitors (6,760 visitors in total), 64% more Brazilians (7,184 visitors), 20% more Montenegrin visitors (4,535 visitors), 2% more Greek visitors (10,334), 22% more Indian visitors (1,522), 17% more Chinese visitors (8,178), 19% more Koreans, 57% more Portugese (8,927), 29% more Spaniards (55,096), 49% more Turkish visitors (13,889), 4% more Serbian visitors (25,405) and 33% more Americans (56,180).

What must no doubt be pleasing for Croatia is not only the increasing amounts of these visitors, but also increasing amounts of visitors from countries further afield (meaning, not the kind of travellers that can simply jump in a car and cross a border or two to get to Croatia) – and in what is off-season. (Although, yes, the period in question is up to the end of June meaning just before the start of peak season, the months of July and August.)

Turning to the more “traditional” visitors, the month of June saw 278,131 German visitors (up a whopping 65%); 169,179 Austrian visitors (up 15%); 121,172 Italians (up 15%); 169,765 Slovenians (up just 1%); and 106,448 Czech visitors (up 6%). Just outside that main contingent, still for the month of June, were 43,219 Hungarian visitors (up 14%); 22,685 Bosnian visitors (up 19%); 71,606 Polish visitors (up 14%); and 35,877 Russian visitors (up 15%).

Source: Vjesnik

Three Men Go To Venice…via Croatia

22nd June 2011/0 Comments/in Blog, Croatia on TV, Dubrovnik, Korcula, Vis

Croatia was nicely featured in a BBC2 broadcast of the first episode of a new series last night, the latest in the Three Men In A Boat set of documentary shows. Featuring comedians Dara O Briain, Rory McGrath and Griff Rhys Jones, previous programmes have seen them take part in various japes – on boats – in Britain and Ireland. This particular series sees the trio start their journey in Montenegro, making their way up the Adriatic – via various Croatian towns and islands – with the aim of reaching Venice to take part in a gondola race there. (I suppose they could have just gone straight to Venice for water escapades there, but that probably wouldn’t fill two 1-hour episodes. Having said that, Griff Rhys Jones revealed that the original title of the show was supposed to be Three Go To The Balkans, but that was apparently deemed unappealing sounding.)

The Croatian section of last night’s episode (with more of Croatia featured next week) showed them in Dubrovnik, Korčula and Vis. Having sailed into Dubrovnik in rather stormy weather, on a boat that was part of a holiday flotilla, they awake to glorious sunshine and there’s a comedy-sketch-like scene where Rory McGrath returns with breakfast for all of them – including some kind of pig’s ear – only for the other two to have decamped to a local cafe.

Croatia’s beaches ranked 2nd in Europe for cleanliness

17th June 2011/1 Comment/in Blog, General

According to the European Environment Agency just publishing bathing water quality report, Croatia has the second cleanest beaches in Europe – with beaches in all EU member state, plus Croatia, Montenegro and Switzerland, tested.

As reported by HRT yesterday, of the 913 bathing water sites tested in Croatia in 2010 – 887 of them on the coast – 97.3% were found to meet the strict EU water guidelines. This placed Croatia second on the list behind Cyprus, where 100% of sites met the strictest criteria, and ahead of countries such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. In less stringent tests, a slightly higher 98.7% of water bathing sites met the minimum EU guidelines.

One of the most famous beaches in Croatia – Zlatni Rat on the island of Brac

These figures in fact decreased ever so slightly from the previous year. In 2009, 99.6% of sites met the EU’s minimum guidelines, whilst 97.9% passed the stricter tests. In 2009, however, the total number of bathing sites in the country was 8 less – 905. No sites were required to be closed after undergoing testing last year, which was also the case in 2009.

You can read more about the EEA’s Bathing Water Report – including individual reports on all the countries – on their website: Bathing water quality remains high around the EU where there’s also a rather nifty interactive map. You can also look up the results of particular beaches across Europe on their Data Viewer page – although in the case of Croatia, you’ll find almost all ranked excellent!

Sources: HRT, EEA

More tourists in Zagreb

16th May 2011/1 Comment/in Blog, Tourism stats, Zagreb

An article from Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji from the end of last week featured an interesting look at the numbers of tourists that Zagreb receives, and the experiences of those visiting Croatia’s capital.

It’s often been commented (by ourselves and others!) that the city is overlooked as a tourist destination in favour of the coast – perhaps understandably, given the charms and obvious delights of the towns, cities and islands on the Adriatic. However, Zagreb is certainly increasing in popularity as a place to visit. Last year, 602,186 tourists came to Zagreb, a figure which was up 4% on the year before. Of these visitors, most came from Germany (37,715), followed by America (29,769), Italy (29,201), Spain (29,002) and then Japan (23,611).

This increase in visitor numbers may well continue into 2011. During the Easter weekend, Zagreb welcomed 5,800 tourists, which is up by a a huge 48% on Easter 2010. (Although, of course, Easter fell earlier in the year in 2010.)

On average, most foreign visitors come to Zagreb for three nights and stay in a hotel or hostel. Those that stay in hotels are typically 43 years old and will spend €144 per day. Those that stay in hostels, meanwhile, have an average age of 28 and will spend €51 per day. The majority of visitors to Zagreb come for business, a short holiday, or to attend an entertainment or sporting event. (Seeing as Zagreb’s calendar of events is rather jam-packed this year – including concerts from a number of world-famous stars – that’s hardly surprising!)

Of course, visitors to Zagreb have a number of positive and negative comments to make about the city. In general, tourists find that taxis are expensive and also comment on the unnecessary parking restrictions in the centre of the city. Zagreb’s airport also comes under fire for its provincial “feel” with only one terminal building, whilst the graffiti that appears on some buildings in the city centre is understandably disliked. Some visitors also comment that they are disappointed in not being able to buy many souvenirs, whilst the short museum opening hours is also commented on.

Happily, visitors do also comment on a number of positive things about the city. They say that Zagreb’s cleanliness and safety are two major pluses, whilst also praising the city’s friendly people and atmosphere. Many also enjoy the rich history of the city.

Let’s hope that Zagreb’s visitor numbers increase further and many more come to enjoy this city!

Source: Jutarnji

Dubrovnik’s cable car a hit just one year on

11th May 2011/0 Comments/in Blog, Dubrovnik

The Dubrovnik Cable Car attraction in the beautiful Croatian town has already become a very popular tourist attraction, in less than a year of opening – as reported by today’s Slobodna Dalmacija.

This is according to Tripadvisor, where travellers have ranked the cable car as the third best attraction in the town – out of 60 listed for Dubrovnik on the site. This puts the attraction behind the Old Town walls (called the Ancient City Walls on Tripadvisor – not entirely sure I agree with that name!), in first place, and the whole Old Town itself, in second.

Although this incarnation of the cable car opened in July last year following a €5 million renovation, the cable car was already a popular attraction back in the day. The first version was opened to tourists in 1969, ferrying up to 2 and a half million visitors per year until it was destroyed during the war in Croatia in 1991.

The cable car takes passengers on a 778 metre journey from Dubrovnik to Mount Srd – which is 405 metres high – where they can enjoy a fantastic view of the Old Town below, out to sea and of the nearby islands. There is a restaurant at the top for those wishing to kick back and relax whilst enjoying the view. The Museum of the Croatian War of Independence is also located there.

Open year-round, the cable car departs every half hour – though departures can increase in frequency (even every ten minutes) at busy times. Each cabin can hold 30 passengers.

Travellers on Tripadvisor rightfully comment on the wonderful views, and the quick journey time (around 4 minutes) to the top when praising the attraction. Let’s hope the reviews keep rolling in!

Sources: Slobodna Dalmacija, Valamar Hotels & Resorts

Arts & Crafts Fun Festival on Hvar this summer

15th April 2011/0 Comments/in Blog, Dalmatia, Events, Hvar

If you’re visiting Hvar this May and June – or wish to improve on your creative talents in a beautiful setting – you may well be interested to hear about a fantastic arts and crafts festival that is taking place in Hvar Town. Running from 28th May through to the 18th June, the inaugural Arts and Crafts Fun Festival will be running a number of workshops that will enable participants to pick up a new skill or learn a new craft – all on the wonderful setting that is the island of Hvar. Truly, a fantastic way of doing something creative – or doing something a little different during your holiday in Croatia!

Hvar
Hvar – so beautiful!

The Festival will be holding workshops that will each last six days with two three-hour sessions per day, with each day building on the previous day’s study. Workshops include papier-mache, silk and wool creative felting, silver craft and calligraphy, with each being run by experts in these fields, from both Croatia and abroad. All classes will be run in English, so you don’t have to worry about any tricky language barriers! All workshops will be held in the Hotel Podstine, where you can also stay (taking advantage of a special discount associated with the festival).

Workshops are limited to 20 participants, so you can be sure that you will be getting the most from a workshop and its instructor. Each workshop costs 300 Euros, although there is a 15% discount for anyone eager enough to sign up to two or more. A 100 Euro deposit is required to sign up to a workshop.

The Festival isn’t all about working hard and learning, however – and that’s where the “Fun” element of its name comes into play! There will be many additional activities and events scheduled, including sailing and cycling excursions, exhibitions and parties, with welcome events being held each Saturday as an introduction to the Festival and its new participants.

Applications for the Festival can be made on the official website – www.acffcroatia.com – where additional information can also be found.

Arts and Crafts Fun Festival
28th May – 18th June 2011
Hvar Town, island of Hvar, Croatia
www.acffcroatia.com

Seaplanes could link Croatian mainland and its islands

6th April 2011/0 Comments/in Blog, Travelling around

A number of Croatian newspapers this week reported that a German company is to start operating seaplane flights on the Croatian coast, establishing regular lines between the mainland and several of the larger islands.

European Coastal Airlines (ECA) plan a first phase of flights later this year, linking Split and Dubrovnik with the islands of Korcula, Hvar, Vis and Lastovo, and also Zadar, Rijeka and Pula to the more northern islands of Mali Losinj, Rab, and other nearby islands. In total, 30 seaports would be used for flights between these places.

To give an example of how long some of these flights might take and the fares involved, ECA say that Dubrovnik would Korcula would take 20 minutes and cost €43; Split to Hvar would take 12 minutes and cost €25 and Split to Korcula would take 20 minutes and also cost €43; whilst Rijeka to Mali Losinj would take 22 minutes and cost €48. By comparison, to travel from Dubrovnik to Korcula takes 2 and a half hours by catamaran or just over 4 hours by ferry. (Both of these routes include stops along the way.)

ECA then plan to expand their services into a second phase, offering flights between a number of Italian ports on the Adriatic – such as Trieste, Venice, Ravenna, Rimimi, Brindisi, Ancona and Bari – to the same Croatian islands mentioned above. Ancona to Mali Losinj would be a 32 minute flight, whilst Pescara to the island of Vis would take 42 minutes.

The planes that would be used are De Havilland Twin Otter DHC-6s which can carry 19 passengers, and are able to land on both terrain and on sea.

The fares mentioned above could also be lowered if tickets are booked enough in advance. Likewise, potential government subsidies could also see fares lowered substantially for locals – so a fare for Split to Hvar could be around 100 Kunas (€13.50). Clearly, these planes could benefit island inhabitants by enabling them to reach the mainland much more easily.

However, a quick search reveals that this company has been attempting to get such a project off the ground for a number of years – our forum even shows a discussion about it from 2005 (!) – and has never yet been successful. It’s certainly an interesting project and one that we think would be popular (with a certain type of tourist, at least!) but all we can really say is – watch this space…

Sources: Jutarnji, Vecernji, Slobodna Dalmacija