There is nothing surprising about the leisure industry in Croatia giving off its first sparks of activity around this time of the year, especially considering the country's popularity in the nearing summer season and the ever-growing number of tourists, yearly pouring onto its seaside from every part of Europe and elsewhere. However, some of the first updates this year include both a coastline town – Zadar – as well as the country's continental capital – Zagreb, as investment destinations for hotel development.

Dogus Group, a Turkish private sector conglomerate with a portfolio that spans across a variety of industries – including the hotel industry – has announced the EUR 80 million reconstruction of Zadar's "Maraska" factory into a five-star resort. The resort is planned to be equipped with 120 rooms and an additional luxury residential complex with 80 apartments, a commercial shopping zone, and a number of restaurants and cafes. Burak Baykan, the regional director of the Dogus Group for Croatia and Montenegro, has declared 2018 to be the anticipated year of project completion. This will be the first reconstruction investment of the Dogus Group in Croatia, as they have already been involved in a Greenfield investment in this country, namely, with the construction of the "D-Resort Šibenik" luxury hotel last summer.

On the other hand, Accor Hotels, a French-owned hotel group that ranks among the world's largest ones, has announced plans of building a couple of hotels under their "Ibis" economy brand in Zagreb. The search for strategic partners in this project is underway, according to Laurent Picheral, the company's Director for Central and Eastern Europe. Picheral has noted the improvements in the investors' climate in Croatia of the past few years as the main reason behind this decision, outlining a number of other destinations in this country as developing investment hot-spots including Split, with its growth in tourist traffic, and Dubrovnik, as an increasingly active film production centre (insert the link to the previous news item).