Crikvenica has a hundred-year-old tradition in tourism and is today one of the leading tourist centres of the Kvarner Gulf. Foreigners got interested in Crikvenica as early as 1890, when they started to visit the town on their excursions from Opatija. In 1891 the fi rst hotel was opened, owned by Ivan Skomerza. The owner named the hotel Erzherzogin Clotilde. In the same year, Archduke Joseph bought the Pauline monastery and turned it into a military seaside resort and then into a children’s summer resort; today it is a hotel. The rapid tourist development initiated the construction of a public beach and the arrangement of a public park (1891). The foundationstone laying ceremony was also attended by the Croatian viceroy Khuen Hedervary.