Croatia has arrived at this year's Southampton International Boat Show in force, with the national tourist board joined by regional operators and charter companies all making the same pitch: the Adriatic is where sailors should be spending their next holiday.
The country's message to visiting sailors is simple. Life there is lived from the water, and a week aboard means waking to the sound of the sea, swimming before breakfast, and drifting between secluded bays, historic towns and centuries-old fishing villages.
That variety is central to the appeal. One day might take a crew through a national park past dramatic cliffs into a cove reachable only by boat. The next could land them in Dubrovnik, Split or Šibenik, where UNESCO-listed old towns sit just beyond the waterfront.
Direct flights run from London, Manchester, Birmingham and other UK cities into Split, Dubrovnik, Zadar and Pula, cutting transit time and leaving more of the trip for the water.
Croatia is exhibiting on Stand H206 in the New Wave Hall.
Among the regional exhibitors is Šibenik-Knin County, billed as "Nautical Paradise" and responsible for a quarter of Croatia's entire nautical tourism revenue. Its archipelago runs to 249 islands, islets, cliffs and reefs across 665 square kilometres, sandwiched between Kornati National Park and Krka National Park.
Dubrovnik-Neretva County is promoting its own string of destinations, from the walled city of Dubrovnik itself to the islands of Lopud, Šipan, Mljet, Korčula and Lastovo, plus the Pelješac peninsula, known for its oysters, wineries and the walls linking the villages of Ston and Mali Ston.
On the charter side, Croatia Yachting has been operating since 2004 and now runs six bases along the Dalmatian coast, in Sukošan, Biograd, Šibenik, Seget Donji, Kaštela and Dubrovnik. The company offers charter across more than 98 destinations from a fleet of more than 3,000 yachts, and says more than 165,000 guests have chartered with it to date.
NCP & Mare, based in Marina Mandalina in Šibenik, has been chartering since 1995. Its fleet of more than 70 boats includes Grand Soleil, Dufour, Fountaine Pajot, Lagoon, Sunseeker, Fairline, Prestige and Marex vessels, and the marina's position between Split and Zadar airports, next to both the Kornati archipelago and Krka waterfalls, means guests can spend all seven nights of a charter out on the water, including the last.
NCP & Mare is offering a 10 percent discount on charter bookings made during the Southampton show, giving visitors to the stand good reason to firm up next season's plans on the spot.
