In March 2020, Croatia observed a fall in tourist arrivals by -74.5% and a fall in tourist nights by -53.0%.

Due to travel restrictions imposed by a great number of countries to prevent the further spread of the virus, it is expected for tourism to record an extreme decline.

According to the Croatian National Tourist Board, in March 2020, Croatia observed 118,236 tourist arrivals, representing a decline of -74.5% YoY. Of that, foreign tourists accounted for 55%. Meanwhile, tourist nights amounted to 518,530, which is a decrease of -53.0% YoY. Foreign tourists took 54% of the total tourist nights realized.

Tourists from Germany recorded the most tourist arrivals, accounting for 16.5%. Tourists from Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina follow, accounting for 13.3% and 8.6%, respectively. However, each of these top 3 tourists by country of origin also observed a drop in arrivals greater than 70%. Meanwhile, the most of the tourist nights were observed by tourist from Bosnia & Herzegovina, representing 19.6% of foreign arrivals. 

When observing the arrivals realized by counties, Zagreb leads the list with 16.7% of the total arrivals. The counties of Istria and Splitsko-dalmatinska follow, accounting for 14.4% and 13.8% of total arrivals, respectively. Looking at tourist nights, Splitsko-dalmatinska county comes first with 18.2%, followed by Istria and Kvarner with 16.0% and 15.0% proportion of tourist nights respectively.

When looking at the nights realized by the type of accommodation, one can observe that private accommodation leads the list with 165,615 nights accounting for 32% of total nights. Hotels follow with 31% of nights realized in them, making them the second most important source of accommodation also in low season. Note that hotels recorded a 79.3% decrease in arrivals and 77% decrease in tourist nights realized. It remains to be seen how corona-virus crises will effect hotel’s share in total nights spend once the travel bans are lifted and hotels are reopened.