The Number of Japanese Guests on the Rise

This autumn, direct charter flights from Tokyo, three landing in Zagreb and one in Dubrovnik, have brought tourists from Japan to Croatia. In recent years, the number of Japanese visitors has been on the rise.

Last year a total of 65,000 Japanese tourists visited Croatia and accounted for 100,000 overnights, one fifth of them in Zagreb. During the first ten months of this year, Zagreb had 18 per cent more Japanese visitors than during the same period last year, whereas the number of their overnights was up by as much as 28 per cent. 

Until last year, the only information the Japanese market could find on Croatia was a short chapter in a Central Europe guidebook. This year, the situation has changed dramatically, as four new booklets on Croatia have been published, an office of the Croatian National Tourist Board has been opened in Tokyo and the promotional activities have experienced a major boost.

The principal promoters of Croatia on the Japanese market are athletes Goran Ivanišević, Mirko Filipović, and the Croatian football players, as well as the pianist, Maksim Mrvica. The Japanese are most profoundly impressed with promotion campaigns with a twist – those which link up the Esplanade Hotel with the notion of the Orient Express Hotel, or promote Dingač wine as Tito’s wine. 

As a nation, the Japanese are particularly service-oriented and extremely attentive to detail and this is exactly what they expect from others. They love Croatian spontaneity and hospitality and they do not look for any special treatment. They expect to receive the services they have paid for, nothing more or less, because the Japanese tourist law is very stringent and does not tolerate any disproportion between the services ordered and those rendered.