ZAGREB CONSULTING COMPANY ASSESSES EFFICIENCY OF CRO HOTEL INDUSTRY

ZAGREB, Feb 13 (Hina) - Croatia's tourist industry has been experiencing a deep crisis over the past ten years, which is visible from poor tourism indicators and results of Croatian tourism industry. Apart from that, a concept of mass tourism is still present in Croatia and it affects the structure of hotel offer, which is dominated by large buildings with small rooms, a lack of adequate tourist offer and uniform products, reads an article in the international magazine 'Turizam', published by the Croatian Tourism Board and the Zagreb Institute for Tourism. Other reasons for this situation are problems in marketing and a lack of a single proposal for the promotion of Croatian tourism. The competitiveness of the Croatian hotel industry is limited also by high prices of food and drinks. The authors of the article - Sanja Cizmar and Mario Seric of the Zagreb company Horwath Consulting compared the Croatian hotel industry with its main rivals - Spain, Portugal, France and Greece and countries of the second rival group - Austria and Hungary. The share of hotel capacity in the overall accommodation offer in Croatia is considerably smaller (20%) than in the above-mentioned countries (above 40%), with other types of accommodation (camps, apartments, private accommodation) prevailing. In comparison with its rivals, Croatia has the lowest number of hotels (453), but they are considerably larger on the average (137 rooms per hotel). With the average price of US$40.07 per room, Croatia's hotel industry is only above Hungary. France is in the first place with the highest average price of US$112 per room. (hina) rml