Tourist numbers over Easter indicate a good start to the season
Over Easter weekend in Croatia, many areas of the country welcomed their first large influx of visitors, perhaps pointing to indicators for the proper season ahead. Initials reports suggest that around 75,000 tourists visited the Croatian coast alone, with good weather prompting a number of last-minute arrivals.
Istria received around 30,000 tourists, mainly from nearby countries such as Slovenia, Italy, Austria and Germany, which is 15% up on Easter weekend last year – though Easter fell earlier in the year in 2010. This coming weekend – which includes the Labour Day holiday – is expected to bring around 70,000 tourists to the county. 70 hotels were open over the Easter weekend, as well as – unusually – a few of the best campsites there (which normally only start opening in May), as bookings were up 10-20% this year.
In the Kvarner Riviera, 110 hotels were open during Easter weekend, in which 18,500 guests stayed. Meanwhile, 15 hotels in the Makarska Riviera welcomed around 7,000 visitors. Plitvice Lakes received around 2,000 visitors, with most foreign visitors from Japan, South Korea, Italy and Germany.
Dubrovnik received 6,000 tourists, with foreign visitors mostly from Britain, France, Spain, Scandinavia and Germany – similar to last year. About 1,000 tourists stayed in Split, although numbers of visitors in the city each day reached 10,000 with additional tourists arriving on day trips from cruise ships and by bus from other locations in Dalmatia. In total in the area of central Dalmatia, 90 hotels were open.
Vjesnik reports that Zadar may have had the best Easter of all, in terms of visitors numbers. They report that evenings in the town often looked as busy as they would be at the height of the season, and one hotel group even having to stop taking bookings for Easter weekend.
Slobodna Dalmacija, meanwhile, also states that Bol on the island of Brac had a great weekend, where apparently all hotels were open and filled to capacity.
Sources: Vjesnik, Slobodna Dalmacija