“Croatian Islands – COVID-free zones”: a new campaign to enhance tourism

It seeks to provide accurate and reliable information on the COVID situation

Working with the Croatian Institute of Public Health, the Croatian Ministry of Tourism and Sport has unveiled its new campaign: "Croatian Islands – COVID-free zones". The goal of this campaign is to provide tourists with accurate information regarding the epidemiological situation in the country’s islands.

The Ministry explains that tourists are currently misled by the COVID statistics that they see. This is because Croatia’s epidemiological map groups islands with the counties in which they are located, even though they have a much lower COVID incidence than the mainland. For this reason, the campaign seeks to reform the map and separate islands from their counties in order to give tourists more accurate information.

These changes will be reflected on the Safe Stay in Croatia website which will soon be updated to offer visitors reliable information based on islands, instead of counties. Taking this further, the website will also contain details regarding COVID testing points as well as air, land, and sea transport connections between islands and the mainland.  

Croatia's epidemiological map. Source: Ministry of Tourism and Sports

Effect on tourism

As one might expect, an extremely large portion of Croatia’s tourism turnover depends on islands. More specifically, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports explains that the Croatian archipelago consists of 78 islands, 524 islets and 642 cliffs and reefs.

In addition to this, the Minister of Tourism and Sports Nikolina Brnjac detailed how islands affect tourism: “The importance of our islands for tourism is extremely high, because a quarter of tourist nights in Croatia are realized on the islands, and the stay of tourists on the islands is two days longer than in mainland tourist centres.

Also, a third of commercial accommodation is located on the islands and that is why it is important that we have accurate information on the epidemiological situation on all islands, many of which are green zones. In this way, we will provide tourists with a detailed and clear insight into a safe and pleasant stay in Croatia.”

Ultimately, Croatia hopes to boost tourism by providing visitors with accurate information that proves it is safe for them to travel.