Croatia refines its epidemiological map and asks the EU to improve communication to its citizens

Croatia continues its effort to build a favorable reputation to persuade foreign tourists to visit the country. And if on the one hand it presents a further evolution of the Croatiacovid19.info site, which offers increasingly detailed information about Coronavirus infections, on the other it opens a controversial front with Europe. According to the Croatian Tourism Association (HUT) it is in fact essential that the information tool made available to citizens by the European Union, and specifically the Re-open-eu website, offers more detailed information than has been the case to date.

Specifically, Croatia has been divided into only two regions (as opposed to other EU countries), while it would be more than appropriate for the different internal geographical areas to be considered separately. Thus, while the display of the country’s contagion status could be represented more faithfully, as can be clearly seen by comparing the two maps, the image offered to foreign tourists is that of a country still in difficulty, with one of the two regions reported as “Red”.

The croatiacovid-19.info page was instead updated by the HUT to show the epidemiological situation not only by counties, but also by islands. The map is updated daily with new data and shows the daily number of new cases, the incidence per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 and in the last 7 days, the number of active cases and the share of positive in the last week. In addition, key measures related to catering, working hours and other important measures for tourists are presented, both at the national level and at the level of individual counties.

Depending on the situation, counties and islands are assigned colors defined with the criteria of the European Center for Disease Prevention (ECDC). Currently, Istria and 5 islands – Brac, Cres, Korcula, Losinj and Vis – are in “green” with fewer than 25 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days.

“Regional presentation of the epidemiological situation in Croatia is crucial for the correct communication of the epidemiological situation in the tourist season towards our emitting markets,” said Veljko Ostojic, director of the Croatian Tourism Association. “The regional approach to the counties in Croatia has been continuously supported by Germany since last season, and now it has been accepted by Austria, which is extremely important for the success of this season. We believe that this is the best way to motivate the local population to behave responsibly, especially in tourist counties where safety is a prerequisite for tourist traffic”.

The epidemiological map will be advertised through all official channels of the Croatian Tourism Association, as well as through the channels of the largest tourist companies associated with HUT. Last season, the epidemiological map was viewed by 750,000 visitors, 55 percent of them from Germany, followed by Austria and Slovenia, and provided a lot of crucial information that convinced them to go to Croatia for the holidays.