Croatia records 20 million tourist arrivals for first time in history

Record year

ZAGREB, 8 November 2019 – Croatia has recorded 20 million tourist arrivals in a year for the first time in its history, the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ) announced on Friday. 

According to data from the eVisitor system, which contains tourist traffic recorded in commercial, non-commercial and nautical charter sectors, there have been a total of 20,013,805 arrivals so far in 2019. This is 5% more than in the same period last year. 

A total of 107,031,617 overnight stays were recorded in the same period, this was 2% more than in the same period in 2018. It was also the first time that overnights have passed 107 million. 

“Croatian tourism has experienced a great boom over the last few years, numerous new high-quality accommodation facilities have been opened, new offers have been created and tourism has truly become a real generator of economic development. This historic result, this challenging tourist year in which we have exceeded 20 million tourist arrivals for the first time, is a testament to the quality synergy between the public and private sectors without which such results would not be possible. The Government of the Republic of Croatia is aware of the importance of tourism and that is why we are constantly working to strengthen the competitiveness of tourism in cooperation with stakeholders in the tourism system, so that in the future Croatian tourism is an example of quality and success. I believe this record will be a motivation for all of us to continue to build and make Croatian tourism even better,” said Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli.

HTZ Director Kristjan Stanicic added: “Having exceeded the tourist turnover achieved in the whole of last year in October, these historic 20 million tourist arrivals are further confirmation of the strength and stability of the Croatian tourism sector, which has achieved new excellent results in this very challenging year. We have a challenging 2020 year ahead of us, which will aim to keep up the positive trends, and that many partners have spoken with, who have spoken to us at one of the world’s largest WTM tourism fairs in London, as well as at China’s largest China import fair International Import Expo, which is just taking place in Shanghai.”

Korcula (Photo: Milica Spasojevic)

So far this year, most overnights were from tourists from the markets of Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Poland, Italy, Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, while from non-European countries the most nights were from the United States, Australia, Canada, South Korea and China. 

The most popular destinations were Dubrovnik, Rovinj, Porec, Split and Medulin.