I just read the story on yet another way of tempting tourists to Croatia. Now, I don’t know about you but this one is new for me. And when I think about it, I don’t understand how I haven’t heard of it sooner. So what is it all about? It is simple. Dental care in Croatia is a lot cheaper than in Western Europe (about twice to even four times cheaper). Now, combine this with the fact that Croatia is becoming increasingly popular tourist destination and this ingenious, yet simple idea reveals itself. You can come to Croatia, enjoy your holidays, visit dentist and you might save complete accommodation cost! Wow! Free holidays!

Of course, Croatian dentists did not invent this type of tourism offer - medical tourism and dental tourism were popular long time before this. I found an interesting website that claims to be “The UK’s leading guide to medical tourism” (link at the end of this article). It has a section on dentistry and under Croatia it has 3 dental clinics in Croatia: in Zagreb, Split and Rovinj. On this site you can also read patient stories, get quotes for services in different countries, learn about dentist accreditations and more. But please read this article before visiting, I tried to do some research on the subject and you just might find it useful before starting your own investigation.

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Split is my hometown and it might seem to you that it’s only natural for my first article to be about it, but actually that is not the true. The true reason was that today I run across an article in New York Times by Alex Trevar. Now, I also need to admit that I’ve deliberately chosen my title to make you think that Alex is claiming that Split is only a stopover (and that I disagree) but that is not the case here. In fact, I agree with Alex 100% who seems to have discovered Split as a great place to visit (and to stay!) despite its reputation of a stopover!

But Alex makes it very clear at the first page: “Irrefutably, the numbers bear out the image of Split as a stopover. According to the Split Tourism Board, about 188,000 visitors stayed overnight in Split last year, but about 4.5 million passed through town. Split’s reputation, however, seems certain to change…”

The numbers speak for themselves but numbers will also get you nowhere. You must already know that “numbers” and “reputation” lie sometimes and in this case it is going to be revealed if you just ask “why is it like that?”. Because there is nothing to see and do in Split? No way (there it goes into my headline)! I’ll give you 2 reasons: 1) there is not enough hotels in Split and that lowers number of overnight stays, 2) Split is Dalmatia’s largest city and the “Transportation hub” of Dalmatia which pumps up the numbers of passes through.

So, the truth, as Alex too has discovered: “…But the thought of the city as merely a way station seems silly when you walk through the Old Town with the sun throwing golden morning light across the white stone streets…“.
“…It wasn’t until last May that I decided to explore Split - loaded with night life, historical and cultural sites, and around nine miles of beaches with crystal clear water - and started to see how shortsighted I’d been…”

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