In August 2020, Croatia observed a fall in tourist arrivals by -46.16% and a fall in tourist nights by -36.37%.

According to the Croatian National Tourist Board, in August 2020, Croatia observed 2.68m tourist arrivals, representing a decline of 46.16% YoY (4.97m arrivals in August 2019). Such figures indicate that the average stay per person increased from 6.7 nights to 7.9 nights.

Foreign tourists accounted for 2.23m (or 83%) of total arrivals, representing a decrease of 51.4%. Meanwhile, they accounted for 17.09m of total nights realized (or 81%), representing a decrease of 41.1%. Such figures show a positive trend regarding a slowdown in decline in tourist arrivals and night released compared to the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak. It is worth noting that arrivals in August account for roughly 25% of total arrivals.  

As July and August account for the majority of the Croatian touristic season it is also worth looking at the value of taxable invoices to further observe the impact of a lower performing tourist season. According to the Tax Administration of the Republic of Croatia in the period from 24 February until 30 August 2020, the value of taxable invoices decreased by 19% YoY. Drop in taxable invoices in wholesale and retail trade in the same period was only at 10% while drop in accommodation and food services was at 46%.

As a reminder, in April, due to the lockdown, Croatia has witnessed extremely low figures when it comes to foreign arrivals. To put things into perspective, in April, Croatia observed 2,349 arrivals compared to 2.87m in the same month last year. Meanwhile in May, Croatia observed a fall in tourist arrivals by -94.8% and a fall in tourist nights by -90.7%.

Tourists from Germany recorded the most tourist arrivals and nights in August, accounting for 25.2% of all nights realized. Note that German tourists recorded a 17.9% YoY decrease in nights realized, which could be deemed as a relatively low decrease given the Covid-19 situation. Tourists from Slovenia and Poland follow, accounting for 13.2% and 10.65% of nights realized, respectively.

When observing the arrivals realized by counties, Istria leads the list with 24% of the total arrivals. The counties of Split-Dalmatia and Kvarner follow, accounting for 20.6% and 18.6% of total arrivals, respectively. Looking at tourist nights, Istria county comes first with 24.4%, followed by Kvarner with 19.8%.

Turning our attention at the nights realized by the type of accommodation, one can observe that private accommodation leads the list with accounting for 46% of total nights. Camps follow with 15.3% of nights realized in them.

Note that hotels recorded 514,155 arrivals (-56% YoY) and 2.5m nights (-51% YoY). It is also worth noting that the nights realized in hotels account for 11.09% of total nights realized, which represents a decrease of 3.54 p.p. Such a decrease does not come as a surprise, given that certain hotels were not open due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so the demand shifted more towards private accommodation.