Croatian tourism minister believes Austria could change travel decision

Croatian Tourism Minister Nikolina Brnjac (Photo: Luka Stanzl/PIXSELL/EU2020HR)

ZAGREB, Aug 19 (Hina) – After Austria rejected Croatia’s request that its warning against travel to Croatia does not apply to the entire country but only to certain areas, Croatian Tourism Minister Nikolina Brnjac said on Tuesday that she expected that Vienna could change its decision.

Austria has imposed obligatory testing for COVID-19 for arrivals from Croatia, while Slovenia is mulling the imposition of a 14-day quarantine for arrivals from Croatia as of next week.

Commenting on those developments, the minister told the national broadcaster (HRT) that nothing was left to chance and that she and other Croatian ministers were in permanent contact with their Slovenian counterparts to provide them with transparent statistical figures about the COVID infections broken down by counties.

This shows that that only two (out of 21 counties) have a rise in new cases, she explained.

“I expect them to take into account the developments in counties, those are relevant data and they are acquainted with them,” Brnjac said.

She underscores that every two weeks Austria revises and updates their lists that categorise countries in terms of epidemiological safety.

“Considering the new measures adopted by the (Croatian) COVID-19 crisis management team, we expect that Austria could change its opinion in relation to Croatia,” the Croatian minister said.

Brnjac ruled out a possibility for Croatia to impose a reciprocal measure on Austria.

She highlighted the fact that there was not any case of a guest having caught the virus while staying in Croatian hotels, and praised those businesses for adhering to epidemiological measures.

She said that there was a negligible number of tourists infected with the virus in Croatia.