Page 52 - BNE_magazine_06_2020 Growers

52 I Southeast Europe bne June 2020
The crowded Baska Voda beach in Croatia last summer. Scenes like these are unlikely in summer 2020.
Southeast Europe looks to near abroad tourists to save 2020 summer season
statistics office said on April 24. Foreign tourists generated just over 47,000 arrivals or 78% lower than a year earlier and almost 146,000 overnight stays which is 71% fewer than in March 2019, the tourist office said.
An important contributor to GDP
The World Bank puts the direct contribution of travel and tourism to GDP as high as 11.67% in Montenegro, 11% in Croatia and 8.49% in Albania, as of 2018.
Taking into account both direct and indirect effects, tourism accounts for around a quarter of GDP in the three countries, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. The European Commission projects a 9.1% GDP contraction in Croatia this year, one of the largest in the union. The other EU members expecting a drop of more than 9% are Greece, Italy and Spain, all major tourist destinations.
The report points out that Croatia’s reliance on tourism “exacerbates the slump and poses a risk in case of longer travel restrictions”. “Service exports should suffer ... due to the negative impact of the suppression and mitigation measures on the travel, hospitality and transport sectors. Due to the expected increased aversion towards international travel by potential non-resident tourists, tourism is not expected to recover to
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The popular Adriatic and Black Sea tourist destinations of Southeast Europe are looking to domestic holidaymakers and those from nearby countries that have managed
to get their coronavirus (COIVD-19) outbreaks under control to save the 2020 summer season.
With travel restrictions imposed across Europe to contain the spread of the highly infectious novel coronavirus, countries such as Albania, Croatia and Montenegro, where tourism accounts for a substantial share of GDP, face severe economic contractions this year.
Figures now being reported for March, during which lockdowns were imposed across most of the region, as expected show a slump in tourism. Croatia, for example, reported that tourist arrivals slumped by 76.8% year-on-year in March, as the pandemic took its toll on the tourism industry worldwide.
The number of foreigners arriving in Albania plunged by 66.4% y/y to 95,321 in March, after rising 13.6% a month
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earlier, data from the statistics institute INSTAT indicated.
Slovenia recorded 75% fewer tourist arrivals and 67% fewer tourist
overnight stays y/y in March due to the government action to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), the
Contribution of tourism to national GDP