Split - leading destination

Thursday, 19 February 2009 16:20

Travels to large European urban tourist destinations brought a profit of EUR 540 million in the last year, i.e. EUR 19.2 million more than in the last year. The figures show that the share of urban tourism reached a whopping 40% of all international tourist travels in Europe! The tourist towns are a hit destination, and year after year a number of city break travellers increases by two-figure numbers, with an expected 14% growth of the large cities tours in the year 2008. 250 million tourists This figure represents the data supplied by ECM - European Cities Marketing, a network of more than one hundred large tourist destinations on the Old Continent that had recorded a number of almost 250 million visitors in the last year. According to the ECM report, last year saw also the increase in the number of days spent in the European cities, with 600,000 overnight stays registered on top of the last year’s numbers. The most significant growth is noted in the cities in the vicinity of smaller airports that are well-connected with low-cost carrier lines. Therefore, the largest growth rates are recorded in Dublin, Tallinn, Tarragona and Zürich. Croatian towns that are members of the ECM network are Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik and Rijeka. In the period between 1995 and 2005, Dubrovnik was on the top of the European list with its significant visitors growth rate, and was later succeeded by Split, which holds the position for the last four years. On the report of ECM, in this period Split had an annual growth rate of 17.2 per cent, thus taking over the first position on the growing popularity chart.