Who are Croatia’s Tourists?

Makarska (photo credit: Makarska Riviera Beaches)

From 1 January 2016 until early September around 13 million tourists visited Croatia. Poslovni.hr, using data via the eVisitor tourist registration system, have gathered some interesting data about the makeup of visiting tourists to Croatia.

The largest percentage of tourists this year fell in the age brackets 0-14 and 35-44, meaning couples with young children made up the majority (40%) of tourists. These tourists characteristically tend to watch what they spend but stay longer than other categories.

Tourists aged between 50-65 made up 10% of tourist traffic, whilst there were around 2 million arrivals by those between 25-34. Those in that age bracket tended to stay shorter but spend more. This year there have been around 1 million tourists in the 65+ age category. They traditionally visit in autumn and spring so that number will rise over the coming months.

The eVisitor reservation system was introduced this year by the Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ) and it gathered tourist statistics which included age, sex and method of arrival for the first time.

“Till now we have had access to only a few basic categories, eVisitor gives us a much more detailed view of the data on citizenship, sex, and age of tourists, as well as accommodation facility and arrival information,” said Ratomir Ivičić, director of HTZ.

Those aged between 25-34 spend more but stay shorter (photo credit: Sail Week Croatia)

Ivičić says that the data can be used to create some interesting reports.

“Now we can find out how many nights Germans aged between 31-40 stayed in a 4 * hotel in a certain destination. We can now get information for example about the number of male tourists who organised their own accommodation on the island of Krk during the long weekend, ” added Ivičić.

Out of the 13 million tourists in Croatia this year, 1.3 were locals. The Germans were again the number one visitors to Croatia so far in 2016, followed by the Slovenes, Austrians, Italians and Poles.

Istria welcomed the most tourists so far this year, followed by the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Split-Dalmatia, Zadar, Dubrovnik-Neretva and Šibenik-Knin.