The Sustainable Tourism Development Strategy 2030, the National Plan for the Development of Sustainable Tourism 2027 and the Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Plan 2025 offer a strategic oversight of tourism in Croatia. The Strategy 2030 was launched at the end of 2022, and defines four key strategic goals for sustainable tourism development: year-round and more regionally balanced tourism; tourism with preserved environment, space and climate; competitive and innovative tourism; and sustainable tourism. In the long-term, the Strategy 2030 aims to maintain Croatia as one of Europe’s leading tourist destinations for safety, quality, added value, sustainability and innovation. In 2025, the Strategy will be formally evaluated to identify implementation gaps and, based on the assessment results, make necessary adjustments if changes are required.
The Strategy 2030 is funded through the State Budget of the Republic of Croatia, the National Budget Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021-26, the Competitiveness and Cohesion Programme 2021-27, the Effective Human Resources 2021-27 Programme, the Integrated Territorial Programme 2021-27 and EU funded programmes.
Several plans support the strategy. The 3-year Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Sustainable Tourism Development Plan 2027 was adopted in 2023 to implement specific goals for tourism through concrete measures. Additionally, the Croatian Tourism Act, which entered into force on 1 January 2024, creates a framework for tourism development management based on data and metrics, to preserve resources and space, guarantee the satisfaction and quality of life of the population in tourist destinations, while ensuring the competitiveness of Croatian tourism on the global market. The Strategic Marketing and Operational Plan of Croatian Tourism was developed in 2023 to better position Croatia on international markets. Regional and local marketing plans will also be developed, and activities will be carried out in the next four years with a focus on promoting tourist attractions that can contribute to reducing seasonality and more balanced tourism development, while setting Croatia's image as a high-value tourist destination.
In 2022, Croatia launched a public call to promote the green and digital transition of public tourism infrastructure and to develop public tourism infrastructure beyond the main tourist and coastal areas, with a budget of 123 million EUR. Another public call, with 165 million EUR, was launched to enhance sustainability and support the green and digital transition of tourism entrepreneurs. As part of the reform of tourism, Croatia improved the Satellite Accounts System in the area of sustainability (Box 3.8).
Educational programmes to strengthen capacities for resilient and sustainable tourism are being implemented, in particular programmes targeting the unemployed and employees in state administrations and tourist boards, with a budget of 1.3 million EUR. The implementation phase will be running until the end of 2025.
The Competitiveness and Cohesion Programme 2021-27 allocated 90 million EUR for subsidised loans for SMEs to encourage competitiveness and develop green and digital tourism products with more added value. Additional 40 million EUR will be allocated for public tourism infrastructure, health, and active tourism products, contributing to social inclusion and sustainable development. The public calls are being prepared and are expected to be published by the end of 2024.
The development of tourism products and services that will enable equal opportunities, adapt tourism infrastructure and adapt business processes to the needs of people with disabilities, will be granted 7 million EUR by the Effective Human Resources Programme 2021-27. The public call is expected to be published in 2025.
Every year, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport launches a small support programme to increase competitiveness in the tourism sector, financed by the State budget, for the green and digital transition of micro, small and medium-sized businesses. In 2023, 221 tourism businesses received 2.57 million EUR in grants, while a new public call was published in 2024.
