We realise that 'sun and sea' are currently our basic tourism product in Croatia. It is vital to our competitiveness to continually develop and advance, and one of the fundamental things lacking in our offer, which has been confirmed by the Tomas 2014 research, is the insufficiently designed and equipped beaches. The ministry has, in cooperation with the Rijeka Faculty of Tourism Management, prepared a national programme for beach management which will be the basis for further development of this product, Minister Lorencin said.
All coastal counties will be involved in this programme which will run over a period of two years and will divide Croatian beaches into 14 categories so that guests can choose which beaches best suit their wishes.
In future we will categorise beaches adapted to families with children, urban promenade beaches, beaches with fun parks for the young, romantic beaches, beaches with sports and recreation facilities, surf beaches, diving beaches, adrenalin beaches, nudist beaches, beaches adapted for pets, party beaches, eco beaches, cultural and hotel beaches, the minister said.
Each local government will decide what category best suits their beaches.
This classification of beaches should redirect some guests to less known beaches and relieve some of the more crowded spots, which will bring Croatia closer to world standards, Dragan Magas from the tourism management faculty said.
Last year the ministry advertised a contest for a programme of subsidies for regional programmes for beach management and all counties along the coast expressed interest in the project which foresees co-financing from the ministry to come up with their own individual regional programmes to categorise their beaches accordingly.