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A 250-million-kuna Valamar Isabella Island Resort, built on the small traffic-free island of Sveti Nikola (Saint Nicholas), off the Istrian town of Porec, was formally inaugurated on Tuesday evening with Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, Tourism Minister Darko Lorencin and some 300 prominent guests attending the inauguration ceremony. The four-star resort has been refurbished for two years, and the works have also included the construction of new infrastructure and renovation of the old hotel Fortuna and the nearby castle Isabella built 120 years ago. The accommodation capacity of the resort includes 334 rooms and suites for some 800 guests, wellness facilities, sports fields and playgrounds, a smart pool area and other amenities. The resort employs 250 people.

United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Secretary-General Taleb Rifai said on Friday the two-day 100th session of the UNWTO Executive Council in Rovinj, which brought together 200 tourism officials and experts from around the world, had been the best UNWTO session ever. Speaking at the final press conference of the event, he said the organisation had been at the highest level, thanking Croatian Tourism Minister Darko Lorencin for that. Croatia has a strong tourism image, it's already a brand, and everyone from the world who came to Rovinj is absolutely satisfied and especially impressed by the people, the kindness, the culture, the service and the rest, Rifai said. He said the session discussed all important UNWTO activities for this year and the next, such as the organisation's budget, the code of ethics in tourism with an emphasis on the protection of children from violence, access to tourism for everyone, seasonality and ways of dealing with it, and a sharing economy, which is increasingly present in tourism. Rifai voiced confidence that foreign tourist arrivals and spending this year would grow 3-5% in comparison to the record year 2014, when more than 1.1 billion tourists travelled around the world, spending close to US$ 1,500 billion.

Nearly 200 tourism officials and experts from about 40 countries gathered in Rovinj on Thursday for the 100th session of United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Executive Council. The two-day session also marks UNWTO's 40 years. Croatia co-chairs the UNWTO Executive Council together with Mozambique, while Jamaica is the chair. Jamaican Tourism and Entertainment Minister Kenneth Wykeham McNeill said nothing could have prepared him for the beauty and hospitality he experienced in Croatia and its northern Adriatic resort of Rovinj. UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai said Croatia always surprised one with the progress in the quality of its tourism product. Twenty years ago it was hard to imagine that small Croatia would become one of the world's tourism leaders and everyone who is attending the session is indeed delighted by everything they have seen and many have said they will come again, he said. Rifai urged Croatia to pursue its tourism policies and development, saying this would quickly lead to even better tourism results. He said the number of foreign tourists globally was expected to continue to grow this year, by four percent from the 1.14 billion who travelled in 2014. It depends on all of us in world tourism, on our cooperation, networking, sustainable tourism policies and incentives whether we will view those billion tourists as an opportunity and obtain positive effects or something opposite, Rifai said. Croatian Tourism Minister Darko Lorencin said Croatia had a tourism strategy whereby it planned to increase tourism revenues from the current EUR 7.5 billion to EUR 14 billion by 2020.