464 000 TOURISTS SPEND VACATIONS ON CROATIAN COAST

( Editorial: --> 4571 ) MALINSKA, Aug 19 (Hina) - Croatian coastal counties hosted 464,242 tourists during the past weekend. This number has increased by 5.5 per cent since last year. Out of the total, 392,000 tourists were foreigners, director of the Croatian Tourist Association (HTZ), Marijan Bulat, said on Wednesday. Although the Istria and Primorje-Gorski Kotar counties were the most visited, they accommodated a somewhat decreased number of tourists as compared to last year. Personnel in tourism will now begin preparing for next year, and around US$15,8 will be set aside for the tourism campaign next year, Bulat said. Most of these funds will be assigned to advertisements, publishing, offices abroad, appearances at fairs and the work of the main office of the HTZ. The campaign will be concentrated on five primary tourist markets (Germany, Italy, Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic), and five secondary tourist markets, (The Netherlands, Slovakia, Great Britain, Hungary and France). The HTZ will particularly invest their efforts in the further strengthening of the reputation of our tourism, the promotion of its quality, good price policy, improvement of offer and improvement of the quality of accommodation, Bulat said. The HTZ will also suggest to the Tourism Ministry to hold a "tourism parliament" in which all ministries able to contribute to Croatian tourism would participate. At this "parliament" session, tourism should be declared the primary activity of Croatia's economy which could stimulate the development of a number of other economic activities, Bulat said. (hina) lml 191434 MET aug 98