In the latest eddition of Travel Weekly magazine, in their World Travel Market coverage, under the title “Croatia to push ecotourism”, Jane Archer writes about presentation of Croatian Tourism at WTM:

The Croatian National Tourist Board is reviewing its marketing plan to put more emphasis on the country’s ecotourism product.

Zagreb-based CNTB director Niko Bulic said the slogan ‘The Mediterranean as it once was’ has successfully helped Croatia recover from the Balkan wars in the 1990s and will be kept for 2008.

He said: “We don’t want to rush into change because the slogan says everything about Croatia, but we want to do more to encourage ecotourism.

“Tourists can come here and see how people live traditionally, how they produce food, fish, harvest olives and grapes. We want to put that in to the tourism offering.”

He hopes a new marketing plan will be approved by the end of 2008.

Bulic said 2007 visitor numbers to Croatia have increased for the eighth year running to 11 million, which brings it close to the 12 million identified as the most the country can handle without being overrun by tourists.

He said: “We don’t want mass tourism. We want quality over quantity.”

Germany is the biggest market, with 1.55 million, while 270,000 visitors will come from the UK this year.

Russia is up 38% to 150,000.

Bulic said: “Some 85% of tourists come by car. We have performed miracles in creating the motorway network in the past eight years. It has opened Croatia to central Europe.”

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