21 million tourists visit Croatia in 2019, a 5% increase

In 2019 Croatia was visited by close to 21 million tourists, a 5% increase from 2018, and they made 108.6 million or 2.4% more overnight stays, show figures from the eVisitor system of the Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ). Foreign tourists accounted for 18.2 million arrivals (4.4% more) and close to 95 million overnight stays (1.7% more).

Last year also saw an increase in the number of domestic visitors and overnight stays, as evidenced by HTZ figures, which show that there were 2.4 million registered domestic tourists, 9% more than in 2018, who generated close to 14 million overnight stays, an increase of 7.6%.

Private accommodation facilities, hotels record most overnight stays

Broken down by type of accommodation, commercial accommodation facilities accounted for 85% of last year's overnight stays, non-commercial accommodation facilities accounted for 12% and nautical facilities for 3%.

In commercial facilities alone, the most overnight stays, slightly more than 39 million, were recorded by private accommodation facilities, an increase of 3% compared to 2018, with the number of beds having increased more in that sector than in other types of commercial accommodation.

Hotels saw close to 25 million overnight stays, 1.7% more than in 2018, while camping sites were third, with 19 million overnight stays, 0.4% down from 2018.

Boaters made 3.5 million overnight stays, an increase of 11.1%, and the highest increase in the number of overnight stays in commercial facilities, of 18.4%, was reported by family farms, with close to 107,000 overnight stays.

Noncommercial accommodation also saw positive trends, with slightly more than 13.1 million overnight stays, an increase of 4.4.% compared to 2018.

Istria, Dubrovnik and Rovinj leaders

Broken down by counties, as in previous years, the county with the most overnight says, of close to 29 million, was Istria County, followed by Split-Dalmatia County, with 20.4 million overnight stays, and Kvarner, with 19.2 million overnight stays.

The only other county that had more than 10 million overnight stays, that is 15.1 million, was Zadar County while all the other counties had less than 10 million overnight stays.

The City of Zagreb and Lika-Senj County had more than a million overnight stays and at the bottom of the ranking were, as usual, continental counties - Vitovitica-Podravina County, with 38,200 overnight stays and Koprivnica-Krizevci County, with 39,000 overnight stays.

The destinations with the largest number of overnight stays were Dubrovnik and Rovinj, with 4.3 million and 4 million overnight stays respectively. Porec follows with 3.5 million overnight stays. Among the top ten destinations according to the number of overnight stays are also Split, Medulin, Umag, Zagreb, Vir, Mali Losinj and Crikvenica.

5.6% more overnight stays in December

In December alone, there were 376,300 tourist arrivals, an increase of 5.5% compared to December 2018, and the number of overnight stays rose by 5.6% to 877,400.

Foreign tourists accounted for 242,000 of the arrivals, 4.7% more than in December 2018, and they generated 594,600 overnight stays, an increase of 5.4%. The number of domestic tourists rose by 7.1% and the number of overnight stays they generated rose by 6%.

The City of Zagreb accounted for the largest share of tourism turnover in December, of 28.4%, followed by Istria, with a 16.1% share, and Kvarner and Split-Dalmatia County, with a share of 15% each.

The destinations with the most overnight stays in December were Zagreb, followed by Dubrovnik, Opatija, Split and Porec.

(Hina)

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