With the Croatian summer season well underway, we decided to take a look at how it performed – both during August (latest data) and from the beginning of the year. According to the Croatian Tourism Board, the total arrivals in Croatia amounted to 4.96m in August, up 1% YoY, while the nights amounted to 31.2m, down 1.5% YoY. Furthermore, in the 8M of the year, tourist arrivals grew by 4% YoY, while tourist nights increased by 1%. While no revenue numbers will be available for the industry for a couple of months, with the switch to more premium segments, the industry as a whole is shifting from mass tourism to more luxurious offerings. As such, in the future, we might not be talking about arrivals and nights as main indicators anymore, as they remain largely stagnant, but of revenue, which tells a more detailed story of the industry’s development, even if it comes at a cost of growing tourist numbers, especially as a result of competition from other tourist-oriented countries.
Croatian tourism, accounting for app. 20% of the entire GDP, is always hot in the news, especially during the summer season. Statistics, especially related to the number of arrivals and overnight stays, as well as the revenue generated by the industry, are tracked closely.
To provide a broader, more detailed picture, in this overview, we decided to also take a look at some trends outside of Croatia that might influence the season, and we also took a look at how the overall year performed. Starting off with the Croatian numbers first, the total number of tourist arrivals in Croatia in August amounted to 4.96m, remaining unchanged YoY, while the number of nights amounted to 31.2m, declining by 1.5% YoY. Of this, foreign tourists recorded 4.46m of arrivals, remaining unchanged YoY, while domestic arrivals amounted to 500k, a 4% increase YoY.
On the other hand, foreign tourist overnight stays amounted to 27.3m, declining by 2% YoY, while domestic tourists recorded 3.91m overnight stays, remaining unchanged YoY.
Total tourist arrivals and overnight stays in Croatia (January 2019 – August 2025)
Source: HTZ, InterCapital Research
Breaking this down further, most arrivals were in private accommodation (49%), followed by camps at 24%, hotels at 19%, and other accommodation at 8%. In terms of the average stay per person, it amounted to 6.28 nights, declining by 2.3% YoY. When looking at the YTD numbers, total tourist arrivals amounted to 17.5m in the 8M 2025 period, up 4% YoY (8M 2024: 16.8m), while tourist nights amounted to 89.7m, a 1% increase YoY.
So, having all of this data in mind, several things stand out. Firstly, the numbers for the most important months have largely stagnated, and this is a trend that has been present for several years now in Croatia. Before, each year was considered a “record” one, but now, they all seem to blend into one another, at least when it comes to tourist arrivals and nights.
The drive in Croatia towards higher-end accommodation, driven primarily by large hospitality companies that are investing significant sums to improve the quality of their service, is commendable and creates higher and better value for tourists. The improvements here are across the board and include hotels, camps, resorts, etc. Inflation also played a large role, especially when it comes to wage inflation for these companies, which is also one of the reasons why the focus has shifted towards higher-end tourism, as these types of customers are more price inelastic and have higher budgets.
This had a knock-on effect, however, as private accommodation owners were also affected by inflation, leading to higher costs for them, and subsequently, higher accommodation prices. While investments are also made here, they are more on an individual level and are not progressing as fast as larger hospitality companies, leading to situations where even older, less equipped accommodation is growing in prices.
One also has to take into account that inflation, as well as the desire for higher profits, has also made other things more expensive, especially food (and this is most strongly felt in the restaurants on the coast) and different types of services offered.
While we still do not have the numbers for the revenue made (and won’t for months, especially for Q3 data), one could expect that revenue will increase across the board, while arrivals/nights, as shown here, should remain stagnant. One thing that should be noted is that the growth on a YTD basis does show that there are more arrivals/overnight stays in the pre- and post-season period, but this growth is still negligible compared to the importance of the summer season.
Lastly, taking a look at overnight stays by country, German tourists accounted for 22% of all overnight stays, followed by domestic tourists at 13%, Slovenia at 10%, Poland at 8%, Austria at 7%, Italy at 6%, and Czechia at 5%. In other words, the most important markets for Croatia do remain in the Central European region. While this has traditionally remained so, a question remains as to how long this could last – inflation remains elevated in Croatia, and prices of accommodation keep going up, the new accommodation that’s added will not stagnate or reduce the prices, in fact, it will increase the prices even more due to that accommodation’s more premium orientation.
At the same time, while other regional markets also face challenges, they could compete on price, and more and more so, on quality offered (primarily referring to other SEE countries here). Does this mean that going forward, we might stop paying so much attention to the number of arrivals/overnight stays and focus more on just the revenue that’s generated? Many questions remain for the future, and as always, only time will tell how this all turns out.