Archive for category: Tourism stats

Croatian Television today reported on some interesting tourist statistics for last year, revealing that 10.6 million tourists enjoyed a holiday in Croatia during 2010, up 3.2% on the year before. These tourists stayed for 56.41 million nights in total, which is also an increase – of 2.6% – on 2009.

These figures include both foreign and domestic (i.e. Croatian) tourists, although the number of the former far outweighs the latter. 86% of tourists – or 9.11 million – were foreign visitors, who stayed for 90.4% of all visitors nights, amounting to 51 million nights. These figures for foreign tourists are up 5% and 3.6% on 2009 respectively.

Although domestic tourist make up only a small proportion of visitor numbers, their numbers actually declined in 2010 compared to the year before. Croatian tourist numbers went done by 5.3% in 2010, and they stayed for 5.8% fewer nights.

Judged by the number of nights they stayed in Croatia, visitors from Germany were the most active tourist group, staying for 22.5% of the total amount of foreign tourist nights. They were then followed by visitors from Slovenia (11.5%); Italy (9.3%); Austria (8.7%); the Czech Republic (8.2%); Poland (5.7%); the Netherlands (4.4%); and Slovakia (4.1%).

Russian visitors posted the greatest increase in numbers, with 165,000 arrivals (35.3% up) in 2010, staying for 1.37 million nights (30.8% up). There were also healthy increases in visitor numbers from Ukraine, Turkey and China. Interestingly, however, Japanese visitor numbers fell by 9.8% from 2009 to 2010.

Source: HRT

Earlier this week, a number of Croatian newspaper covered the release of tourism statistics for Croatia for the month of September – and therefore also the stats for the first nine months of 2010 overall.

For September, Croatia received 1.1 million tourists, an increase of 3% over the same month last year. Meanwhile, these visitors stayed for a total of 6.6 million nights (6.2 million of which can be attributed to foreign visitors), an increase of 6% over 2009.

A number of regions received a healthy increase in overnight stays this September from last year, with Split-Dalmatia the most successful, achieving an increase of 20%. Zadar and Sibenik-Knin also fared quite well, with increases in 15% and 14% respectively. Dubrovnik-Neretva, perhaps unsurprisingly due to the popularity of Dubrovnik, also reached a healthy increase of 12% whilst it’s also rather pleasing to see that Zagreb – sometimes overlooked as a visitor destination in favour of the coast – achieved an increase of 13%. On the other hand, the region of Kvarner – home to resorts such as Opatija and Crikvenica, and the islands of Krk and Cres – didn’t fair anywhere near as well, with an overall decrease in overnight stays of 2% from 2009, whilst Istria and Lika-Senj, in which Plitvice Lakes are situated, reached the same levels as last September.

In terms of visitor arrivals, Split-Dalmatia received 16% more visitors this September and Zagreb 10% – whilst Sibenik-Knin (despite its healthy increase in overnight stay numbers) and Istria received 4% fewer visitors and Kvarner 3%.

Visitors from Russia were the most numerous this September – they accounted for 43% of arrivals and 41% of nights stayed – although there were also good numbers of visitors from American, Spain and Poland.

All of this means that overall for 2010, there have been 9.8 million tourists and 59 million overnight stays (53 million by foreign visitors) in Croatia, with tourism Damir Bajs saying that another 1 million tourists are expected by year end.

In terms of visitor nationalities for the year as a whole, there have been increases in tourists from “primary countries” of Slovenia (up 6%), Czech Republic (5%), Germany (3%), Austria (2%), whilst there has been quite a sharp fall in visitor numbers from Italy (down 9%) as well as a fall in visitor numbers from the Netherlands (down 4%). As with September, there has also been a big rise in visitor numbers from Russia for the whole year – up 34% – with 18% more Spaniards in 2010 and 8% more visitors from Poland.

Source: Vecernji & Vjesnik

Further to my post last week on tourism numbers in Croatia, and the tweets yesterday, many Croatian media sources have reported on the most up-to-date tourism numbers or the country for 2010 so far, which were presented at a meeting on tourism in Opatija this week. Over all, it’s good news – prompting Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, who was present at the meeting, to declare this year the best tourist season ever.

Overall figures for the year show an increase of 3% in the number of arrivals to Croatia, as well as an increase of 6% in overnight stays. (Numbers are compared to 2009’s figures.) This equates to 8.2 million tourist arrivals so far this year, and 51.7 million overnight stays.

All of the Adriatic counties have recorded increases in the number of overnight stays this year, between 4% and 12%. Dubrovnik-Neretva county has been the most successful, recording an increase of 12%. Most visitors were from Germany or Austria, whilst there was a healthy 30% increase in the number of Russian visitors – no doubt helped by the fact that Croatia suspended visa requirements for Russian citizens for the duration of the tourist season. There was, however, a rather severe drop of 13% in the number of Italian visitors.

Croatian Tourism Minister Damir Bajs also stated that every 50th tourist in Europe came to Croatia this year, whilst for the third year in a row, Croatia has been above the European average for tourism numbers.

Sources: Vjesnik, Vecernji, HRT