Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said at the inner session of her cabinet which convened in Lucko, outside Zagreb, on Saturday to discuss the ongoing tourist season, that she was confident Croatia would record good tourist results this season.

Given everything we have invested in the preparations for the season and good indicators recorded in July and even despite the poor results in the first half of this year, I believe there is a chance for good tourist results, Kosor said.

Stressing that tourism was a very important branch for Croatia, Kosor said that Croatia's advantages as a tourist country were good roads and highways, as a total of 90 percent of tourists were arriving in the country individually by cars.

She encouraged all employees in the tourism sector to continue to work hard, stressing that a smile can "fix" even those things that have not been perfectly prepared.

Kosor expressed confidence that numbers in the tourism sector would be even better at the end of the summer, stressing the importance of an increased arrival of Slovenian tourist in Croatia. The number of Slovenians vacationing in Croatia went up 6 percent in the first six months of 2010. The number of Slovenian tourists in June alone rose by 13 percent year on year.

Kosor also underlined an increase of the number of tourists from Russia, China and Ukraine.

Thanking the prime minister for attending today's session, Tourism Minister Damir Bajs proposed they meet once again this season somewhere at the coast.

He said that in the first three weekends of July, a total of 450,000 more foreign tourist entered Croatia compared with the same period last years.