As we had already announced in December, Croatia has entered the eurozone from 2023, adopting the common currency that has also caused so much discussion in Italy. For the first six months of the year, complaints about the rising cost of living in the country were limited to Croatian and border media. With the arrival of summer, Italians, Germans, Austrians and many others returned to Croatia on holiday, discovering an increase in costs that also began to make noise in the rest of Europe.
Our Corriere has sounded the alarm over doubled prices, unapproachable restaurants and 1.8 euro coffee. Relaunching, albeit briefly, the alarm about the nefarious effect of the euro on the pockets of holidaymakers (and perhaps also on those of Croatians). But has Croatia really become a destination for rich people with overflowing wallets and refined businessmen who like to walk around with a roll of banknotes rolled up in their trouser pockets?
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Let's take a look.... First of all, let's dispel a myth: Croatia has not been a cheap holiday destination for several years now. Clearly, by going out of season, choosing a rented flat and cooking your own food, a holiday on the Croatian coast requires a much smaller budget than on the French Riviera. But even before the arrival of the euro, Croatia's low-cost paradise was already a memory.
The Italian media's analysis focused on some factors that are difficult to evaluate and others that are rather subjective, let's say. To complain that in Rovinj one pays 1.80 euro for coffee does not make much sense. The Croatian coast alone, between Rovinj and Dubrovnik, is almost 800 kilometres long. It would be like complaining that coffee in Italy costs 3 euros based on the price charged in a bar in Trento or Trapani. And the cost of accommodation should also be assessed by comparing prices over the last few years, not by shooting random numbers. As for the fact that “Croatians come to Italy to do their shopping”, this really seems to be an exaggeration: probably those who live a few kilometres from the border will do so in the same way as from Vipiteno one could go to Austria to buy petrol. But I doubt that from Zagreb or Dubrovnik Croatians or tourists can make the 800 km drive to save five euros on groceries.
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Yes, groceries. According to reports, the cost of groceries has risen crazily. The Net helps us to assess this. Where we find the advertisements of the most popular chains, such as Spar and Konzum. This allows us to carry out an unpretentious experiment in fact-checking. Let's look at some random products, the more summery ones, shall we say. In Konzum's flyer we find: watermelon 59 cents per kg; Lasko 66cl beer 99 cents; apples 99 cents; peaches 1.49 euro per kg; bread 2.5 euro per kg; fresh milk 1.65 euro per litre; Barilla pasta 500gr at 1.06 euro. Spar offers us: Peaches at 1.19; Mortadella at 8 euro per kg; potatoes at 2.95 per kg; olive oil at 5.49 per litre. Too many numbers? Probably so. But from this brief overview it seems hard to imagine that anyone would travel hours to Italy just to do their shopping.
So can we conclude that holidays in Croatia have not become more expensive? Definitely not. Along the coast, according to my sources on the spot, blue parking spaces are all-encompassing and easily cost 10 euros per day. These, too, are not that expensive compared to ours. Some attractions have disproportionate entrance fees: the tour of the Dubrovnik city walls costs 35 euros per person (but already 7 years ago tourists complained that the cost was too high) while access to the Plitvice lakes is 40 euros per person.
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On accommodation, as we said, it is difficult to make reliable comparisons but for a tent pitch in a nice campsite with a view of the island of Korcula you need at least 80 euros per night, which becomes over 200 for a bungalow.
In conclusion, if you wanted to go to Croatia in high season to spend very little, you should have done it 10 years ago. That boat has sailed by now!
Illustration by Gloria Dozio - Acrimònia Studios
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