At the end of June 2022, the total tourist arrivals in Croatia amounted to 2.83m, which is an increase of 84% YoY. At the same time, tourist overnight stays amounted to 14.8m, which is an increase of 85% YoY.
The Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ) has published its latest report on the changes and developments recorded by the Croatian tourism industry, for June 2022. In the report, we can see that the trend in the tourism industry is really positive, with high double-digit growth recorded both in terms of arrivals and overnight stays.
The total tourist arrivals in June amounted to 2.83m, representing a growth of 84% YoY. Breaking this down further, foreign tourists accounted for the vast majority of arrivals, at 2.51m or 88%, which is an increase of 105% YoY. On the other hand, the remaining 328.8k of tourist arrivals are domestic tourists, which recorded a slight increase of 3% YoY. Considering that the measures back in June 2022 were a lot more lenient for domestic travel than international travel, this is to be expected. As Croatia gets ready for the main summer season months, these numbers are really encouraging, especially considering the geopolitical situation in the EU as well as the war in Ukraine and its geopolitical implications and impacts.
Moving on, tourist overnight stays also recorded noteworthy increases, with the total tourist nights amounting to 14.8m, which is an increase of 85% YoY. Out of this, foreign tourist nights were again the majority, at 13.4m or 91% of the total. On the other hand, domestic tourist nights amounted to 1.41m, which is an increase of 5% YoY. This also means that there has been an increased average stay per person, at 5.24 nights per person, which means that since February, the average stay increased by 84%.
Total tourist arrivals and tourist nights in Croatia ( January 2019 – June 2022)
Taking a look at the tourist nights by country of origin, German tourists constituted the vast majority of tourist nights, at 30%, followed by Austria and Slovenia, with 9% each, Poland with 7%, and Czechia with 6%. In total, these countries’ tourists amounted to 61% of the total tourist nights, meaning that the vast majority of arrivals are from the Central European region. At the same time, looking at the most visited counties, Istra had the most arrivals and overnight stays, at 822.3k and 4.84m, respectively, followed by Splitsko-dalmatinska, Kvarner, and Dubrovačko-neretvanska.
Finally, taking a look at the period from January – June 2022, foreign tourist arrivals amounted to 4.63m (+2.7x YoY), while domestic arrivals amounted to 1.13m (+1.3x). Meanwhile, foreign tourist nights amounted to 21.5m (+2.3x), while domestic tourist nights amounted to 3.35m, an increase of 23% YoY.
So having all of this data in mind, how does this compare to the record 2019 numbers? In terms of total tourist arrivals, June 2022 recorded app. 9% less compared to June 2019. If we were to break this down into domestic and foreign arrivals, domestic arrivals are 9% higher, while foreign arrivals are 11% lower. In terms of total tourist nights, however, the numbers are a lot better. June 2022 recorded only 1% fewer total tourist nights than June 2019. Out of this number, foreign nights were -1% lower, while domestic nights were -5% lower.
Considering the current geopolitical situation and inflationary pressures, one wouldn’t expect the trends to be so positive. As July marks the beginning of the main summer season in Croatia, all the factors are pointing towards a very strong opening. This is especially true if we consider the fact that even with fewer arrivals, the number of tourist nights compared to 2019 was only 1% lower, meaning that on average, tourists spend more overall time in Croatia. With the importance of the tourism industry to the overall Croatian economy, the numbers we see are really encouraging.
