In September 2020, Croatia observed a fall in tourist arrivals by -76.5% and a fall in tourist nights by -62%.

According to the Croatian National Tourist Board, in September 2020, Croatia observed 0.538m tourist arrivals, representing a decline of 76.5% YoY (12.81m arrivals in September 2019). Tourist arrival wise, September was the worst performing month (in relative terms) of the summer season (Jun – Sep). Meanwhile, tourist nights amounted to 4.86m, representing a decrease of 62%. Such figures indicate that the average stay per person increased from 5.6 nights to 9 nights. The high decrease in arrivals could somewhat be explained by the increased restrictions imposed by some European countries, which made traveling complicated.

Foreign tourists accounted for 0.4m (or 74.5%) of total arrivals, representing a decrease of 81.5%. Meanwhile, they accounted for 3.62m of total nights realized (or 88.5%), representing a decrease of 68%. Such figures show a break in trend regarding a slowdown in decline in tourist arrivals and night released compared to the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak.

If we were to observe the figures since the beginning of the year, so far 7.39m arrivals were recorded representing a decrease of -60.7%. Meanwhile tourist nights reached 52.41m by the end of Q3 (-49.1% YoY). Such figures have outperformed the initially announced estimates of the government, which were published during lockdown.

As June – September account for the vast majority of the Croatian tourist 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 27 September 2020, the value of taxable invoices dropped by 18.4% YoY (or HRK 23.35bn) in the period from 24 February till 27 September. Drop in taxable invoices in wholesale and retail trade in the same period was only at 9.97% while drop in accommodation and food services was at 46.6%.

Coming back to solely September, tourist from Germany accounted for 27% of all foreign nights realized, followed by tourists from Poland (10.26%). Tourists from Slovenia follow with 9.78%.

When observing the arrivals realized by counties, Istria leads the list with 24.9% of the total arrivals. The counties of Kvarner and Split-Dalmatia follow, accounting for 17.8% and 17.6% of total arrivals, respectively. Looking at tourist nights, Istria county comes first with 26.7%, followed by Kvarner with 20.9%.

Turning our attention at the nights realized by the type of accommodation, one can observe that private accommodation leads the list with accounting for 30.3% of total nights. Non-commercial accommodation follows with 29.7% of nights realized in them.

Note that hotels recorded 171,953 arrivals (-82% YoY) and 653,366 nights (-81% YoY). It is also worth noting that the nights realized in hotels account for 13.43% of total nights realized, which represents a decrease of 14 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, while non-commercial accommodation witnessed a significantly lower decrease.