Croatia records 20 million tourist arrivals

The Croatia National Tourist Board (HTZ) recently announced that for the first time in its history Croatia has recorded 20 million tourist arrivals in a year.

There have been a total of 20,013,805 arrivals so far in 2019, according to the data from the eVisitor system, which is 5% more than the same period last year. The eVisitor system contains tourist traffic recorded in commercial, non-commercial and nautical charter sectors.

A total of 107,031,617 overnight stays were recorded in the same period, which is 2% more than in the same period in 2018. It was also the first time that overnights have passed 107 million.

Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli stated, “Croatian tourism has experienced a great boom over the last few years, numerous new high-quality accommodation facilities have been opened, new offers have been created and tourism has truly become a real generator of economic development. This historic result, this challenging tourist year in which we have exceeded 20 million tourist arrivals for the first time, is a testament to the quality synergy between the public and private sectors without which such results would not be possible. The Government of the Republic of Croatia is aware of the importance of tourism and that is why we are constantly working to strengthen the competitiveness of tourism in cooperation with stakeholders in the tourism system so that in the future Croatian tourism is an example of quality and success. I believe this record will be a motivation for all of us to continue to build and make Croatian tourism even better.”

HTZ Director Kristjan Stanicic added, “Having exceeded the tourist turnover achieved in the whole of last year in October, these historic 20 million tourist arrivals are further confirmation of the strength and stability of the Croatian tourism sector, which has achieved new excellent results in this very challenging year. We have a challenging 2020 year ahead of us, which will aim to keep up the positive trends, and that many partners have spoken with, who have spoken to us at one of the world’s largest WTM tourism fairs in London, as well as at China’s largest China import fair International Import Expo, which is just taking place in Shanghai.”

This year so far, the biggest number of nights was generated by tourists from Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, the UK, the U.S., Australia, Canada, South Korea and China.

The coastal resorts of Dubrovnik, Rovinj, Poreč, Split and Medulin recorded the biggest number of nights.