Croatia’s tourist numbers, January – August 2010
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.
