Tourists Want Zagreb to be Gay Friendly

Average public toilets, bad souvenir shops, average quality of city and taxi transport, and too much smoking in closed rooms, are only some of the complaints that tourists gave in an internal survey by the Tourist Information centre – tourist letterbox.

In order to improve the offerings for domestic and foreign tourists in the city, guests have been filling out forms for two years, in which they voice their opinions, praises, proposals and complaints. These examples were taken from a sample of 43 surveys in the period from January to August last year.

Tourists want more public toilets

Besides the standard proposals like more tourist information centres in the city, implementing the euro, one of the newer, but increasingly frequent proposals says that Zagreb should declare itself better: if it is a gay friendly destination.

The survey, also shows that foreigners pay good attention to their finances when on vacation, so that they request clear information about tax refunds. The guests praise the service by the staff in the tourist information centre, and the kindness and approachability of Zagreb’s residents as well as the cleanliness of the city.

“The tourist office was very helpful and friendly. By far the best tourist office I have been too. Great service with a smile!” was a comment by a US resident about the tourist office.

Longest stay was four months, the shortest was one day

All of this praise, ideas and complaints were shown by guests from Germany, the USA, France, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Brazil, China, Spain, Israel, Portugal, who participated in the survey.

The longest stay by a visitor was four months, by a guest from the USA (reason for visit: business), and the shortest was one day; with the most visits lasting from two to five days.

As far as the age of the visitors is concerned, there were representatives of all age groups, but most of the people that filled out the survey were between 25 and 34.

Darja Juzbasic from Zagreb’s tourist office, says that this survey will continue to be taken because it gives good leads that serve to improve the tourist offerings in Zagreb.

“We noticed that some of the complaints were for the number of hotels, whose number has risen by one compared to 2007 and is now 14. One of the newer ideas is that Zagreb more clearly define itself if it is a gay friendly city. This says that Zagreb has become an interesting and well known destination, especially for the younger population between 25 and 34 years of age. They are also bothered by smoking, and they constantly warn of the danger of tobacco smoke” concluded Juzbasic.