Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said on Wednesday that the first eight months of this year's tourist season along the Adriatic coast had been the best yet, with a six per cent rise in the number of bed nights and a three per cent increase in the number of arrivals over the same period of 2009.
Kosor presented the figures at a meeting of the government commission in charge of coordinating and monitoring the tourist season, which was held in the northern Adriatic resort of Opatija.
The committee reported 51.7 million bed nights and 8.2 million tourist arrivals in the first eight months of this year. Of the 51.7 million bed nights, 46.3 million were generated by foreign holiday makers, up seven per cent, and 5.4 million by domestic visitors, an increase of two per cent. The number of foreign arrivals rose three per cent to 7.4 million, while domestic arrivals dropped four per cent to 882,000.
The number of bed nights in August went up seven per cent from last year to 20 million, while that of arrivals remained at last year's level at 2.8 million.
Kosor said that one of the reasons for the good results of the tourist season was the early adoption of government measures in the tourist sector. She stressed that this year the government had invested about 30 million euros in tourism promotion.
Tourism Minister Damir Bajs said that the tourist sector should continue its successful work until the end of the year in order to generate two more million tourist arrivals and five million bed nights and thus exceed last year's figures.
The head of the National Tourism Board, Niko Bulic, expressed his confidence that financial results at the end of the year would be as good as the present physical indicators.
