Six airlines from China have expressed interest in launching services to Croatia. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Chinese businesswoman Yu Jiang, whose company is set to takeover Hotel Zagorje in Kumrovec, noted that the much anticipated flights between the two countries should launch soon. "One of the issues for Chinese tourists is that they have to transfer through another airport in order to get to Croatia. We are currently negotiating with several airlines over the introduction of nonstop services from China to Croatia. We have six carriers that are interested and I believe that we will be able to announce the first nonstop flights between our two countries very soon", Ms Yu said.
Ms Yu's company has been working closely with the Zagreb-based Chinese Southeast European Business Association (CSEBA), which has been advocating for flights between the two countries for some time. CSEBA previously noted that Hainan Airlines is "very interested" in commencing flights to Croatia. "We discussed the possibility of Hainan Airlines introducing nonstop flights from China to Croatia, most probably to Zagreb. The launch of this service would boost the number of Chinese tourists to Croatia", the Association previously said. A total of 233.630 Chinese nationals visited Croatia in 2018, representing a significant increase of 46.7% on the year before.
Zagreb Airport previously noted, "We anticipate to finalise talks over the arrival of a Chinese carrier because Croatia is becoming of growing interest to Chinese tourists. There is also an increasing number of Chinese investments in Croatia and we believe that we will be able to find a common ground for the introduction of flights from a Chinese city". In January, the Croatian Minister for Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butković, met with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing to discuss the introduction of flights to Zagreb this year. Mr Butković also met with representatives from Chinese carriers.
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And the airlines are going to introduce the flights from China to Croatia because of her and her hotel?
We have been listening these kind of stories for quite a long time with no final success at all.
Yu Jiang, Who??? This is really clickbait article, rekla kazala sort of stuff. Unless some head of major Chinese airline explicitly said they're starting flights to Zagreb or Croatia, it ain't happening.
Chinese usually visit Zagreb and Kumrovec because of Tito. And than they combine those with Plitvice, Split or Zadar, Slovenia, Austria, Hungary or Italy. All of that too far away from Dubrovnik.
Seriously, a major investor ??? GFB!!!
https://htz.hr/sites/default/files/2019-05/Turisti%C4%8Dka%20statistika%20-%20travanj%202019.pdf
Zagreb had 320 000 foreign visitors in first 4 months, which is slight growth of around 11% on last year. This year we can expect at least 1.5 million foreign visitors in Zagreb and at least 2.7 million nights. Adding domestic visitors as well, some 300 000 and another 500 000 nights, brings total figure to around 1.8 million visitors and 3.2 million nights. Not bad for a city that has less than 500 000 visitors and 800 000 nights in 2010.
Serbia will easily have more than 2 million tourists this year because numbers in first three months are really strong:
1. Greece +56%
2. Russia +30%
3. China +24%
4. Bulgaria +20%
5. Bosnia +17%
6. Romania +12%
7. Croatia +11%
8. UK +11%
9. USA +10%
10. The Netherlands +10%
Plus how many younger Chinese actually know or care about Tito? Croatia seems to be after a dwindling demographic here.
I believe less reliable source could not have been found...or it shows us that more reliable source does not exist?
Anyhow, we heard so many times about US flights to ZAG, Chinese flights to Croatia that are just round the corner, new LCC that will open base in ZAG very soon...
Big empty balloon.