With the main part of the Croatian summer season over with the closing of September, we decided to bring you an overview of how the sector performed during the month, as well as since the start of the year. According to HTZ’s numbers, the total number of tourist arrivals amounted to 2.5m in September, growing by 6% YoY, while the total tourist nights amounted to 13.9m, increasing by 5% YoY. Meanwhile, in the first 9 months of the year, the total arrivals amounted to 19.6m, growing by 2% YoY, while the total tourist nights amounted to 103.5m, growing by 1% YoY.
Croatian tourism, one of the largest and most important branches of the Croatian economy, has been in a lot of spotlight recently, with all the new statistics regarding the performance of the sector being closely watched. Due to this, we decided to create a quick overview of how the sector performed, based on the latest HTZ numbers. According to them, the total number of tourist arrivals during September amounted to 2.54m, of which 2.27m were foreign tourists, while 266k were domestic ones, representing an increase of 6% (total number), 5% (foreign arrivals), and 13% (domestic arrivals), respectively. Furthermore, the total number of tourist nights amounted to 13.9m, growing by 5% YoY. Of this, foreign tourist nights amounted to 12.6m, growing by 6% YoY, while domestic tourist nights amounted to 1.28m, also increasing by 1% YoY.
Total tourist arrivals and overnight stays in Croatia (January 2019 – September 2025)
Source: HTZ, InterCapital Research
Looking at these numbers, one would say that September was “successful”, as the growth numbers are usually hailed for this sector. And while that might be true in this case, one could ask why this is occurring. One of the reasons could be that tourists are switching more towards the post-season, during which the prices are lower compared to the main season. Croatian tourism’s strategy of diversifying from these summer months also played a role. Whichever is the real reason, looking at just one month of the year does not tell the entire story. If we look at the number of arrivals and nights since the start of the year, they amounted to 19.6m and 103.6m, respectively, growing by 2% and 1%, respectively. In other words, the growth was more spread out through the rest of the period, which is again positive, but the growth is quite low in either case.
Coming back to September, the average stay per person amounted to 5.45 nights, declining slightly (-0.5% YoY), indicating that while more arrivals and nights were recorded, tourists generally moved more and stayed less at the same location. Breaking this down by types of accommodation, 86% of the nights were registered in the commercial accommodation, 9% in the non-commercial, and 5% in the nautical accommodation. Furthermore, 37% of the nights were recorded in private accommodation, 29% in hotels, 25% in camps, and 9% in other types of accommodation.
By source markets, the biggest number of overnight stays was recorded by tourists from Germany (29%), followed by domestic and Austrian tourists, both at 9%, respectively, Slovenian tourists at 8%, Polish tourists at 7%, and British tourists at 5%. In other words, the structure has not changed much and does not differ from historical norms, with Central European emissive markets dominating the charts.
Most arrivals were recorded in Istra county, at 3.95m, followed by Splitsko-dalmatinska at 2.79m, Kvarner at 2.26m, Zadarska at 1.8m, and Dubrovačko-neretvanska at 1.28m.
Overall, the numbers are positive for the industry, and given the strong price growth in accommodation, restaurants, and other services within Croatia, one could also expect higher numbers of issued invoices and higher values of invoices, thus supporting revenue growth for both companies and the State. Single to double-digit growth in revenues could thus be expected, but the question remains: given the strong inflation within Croatia, competition from abroad, how long can this growth be maintained? Will we, moving forward, also see single-digit developments as in September, or will the strong price growth finally catch up with the industry, thus leading to stagnation?