More good news for our tourism come from the Netherlands: late last week, they switched Croatia from the yellow to the green list, meaning they lifted all travel restrictions on its citizens, including the obligation to test or isolate upon return. At the same time, to almost all other European countries, which includes absolutely all Mediterranean tourist destinations, the Dutch have assigned as yellow, orange, or red code, writes Tportal.
This news came at the best possible moment considering school holidays in the Netherlands began two or three weeks ago, depending on the region, and end in early September – meaning a mass relocation of people prone to summer travel follows in the next month. Headlines in the local media are mostly reduced to phrases like ‘Croatia in green, Italy in yellow’.
“According to a number of parameters, the Dutch concluded that the epidemiological situation in Croatia is favourable,” says Ivan Novak, the director of the Croatian Tourist Board for the Netherlands, for Tportal.
The Dutch four-color code system is based on the advice of the National Institute of Public Health, which considers several criteria: from the number of newly infected and tested per 100,000 inhabitants, through the number of hospitalized, to epidemic measures in each country.. One of the important criteria is the number of Dutch people who report the infection after returning from vacation.
In the current part of the tourist season, there has been a large increase in the number of arrivals of Dutch tourists: families with children traditionally choose accommodation in camps, and younger guests usually stay in larger cities. Many of them chose Croatia at the last minute, after corona numbers exploded in June and July in other traditional party destinations such as Portugal and Spain.
“All the announcements for the rest of the summer are really great, the Netherlands has never in its history had more airlines to Croatia. As many as six planes a day fly to Split alone, and KLM has introduced a new connection to Dubrovnik,” Novak concludes.
