POREC, Sept 20 (Hina) - This year's tourist season has been successful and Croatia, despite the crisis in world tourism, has been among the few countries whose tourism business has gone up, which calls for preparing next year's season
as well as possible, said participants in Saturday's Croatian Tourism Forum in Porec.
POREC, Sept 20 (Hina) - This year's tourist season has been
successful and Croatia, despite the crisis in world tourism, has
been among the few countries whose tourism business has gone up,
which calls for preparing next year's season as well as possible,
said participants in Saturday's Croatian Tourism Forum in Porec.
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The event pooled about 350 tourism workers and government
representatives, but no one from the Ministry of Tourism and the
National Tourist Board.
In reports about the summer season, representatives of tourism
organisations and experts pointed out that arrivals went up 10
percent and business 25 percent.
Besides highlighting the positive aspects, such as the opening of
new highways, stricter inspections along the coast, and increased
registering of arrivals, experts cautioned about the grey economy
in tourism and the devastation of coastal areas.
Participants in the conference once again requested reducing value
added tax on all tourist services and passing a tourism act as soon
as possible.
Deputy Prime Minister Slavko Linic said, among other things, that
ownership over maritime demesne would soon be regulated by a new
law, and that the new privatisation law would regulate ways of
resolving disputes over land around hotels. He added the government
was working on protecting domestic companies from disloyal foreign
competition.
At the end of the conference, PM Ivica Racan pointed to the need of
raising the competitiveness of Croatia's tourism and economy as a
whole, and of preserving natural resources and hospitality. This
calls for keeping the country and the region stable in the macro-
economic and political sense, he said.
(hina) ha