Government to invest HRK 5.5 million in rural tourism development
17 April 2008
At the conference of the Eco-Ethno Croatia 2008 Organizational Committee in Benkovac, representatives of local authorities and institutions signed the Declaration on Rural Tourism. The main objective of the Declaration is to send a message that continuous and joint work on developing rural areas can raise this type of tourism to the level of an equal and quality tourist product.
The signatories will also draft a special rural tourism strategy in order to allow for its promotion as a part of Croatian promotion as a tourist destination at the international market. Rural areas make as much as 92 percent of Croatia’s territory, while the share of rural tourism in overall tourism is only 5 percent. According to the Croatian Chamber of Economy, there were 359 rural tourist resorts registered in Croatia last year, with the total of 875 beds.
Such tourism is most developed in Istria, where there are 26 percent of resorts with 253 beds. Over the past six years Croatia supported rural tourism with HRK 25 million and the Government plans to invest HRK 5.5 million in the next four years.