March the 30th, 2024 – Approximately 400,000 overnight stays are expected to be realised in Croatia over Easter this year.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Domagoj Puljizovic writes, over the first quarter of 2024, a higher number of tourists and overnight stays were recorded across Croatia than last year. The Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ), hoteliers and travel agencies all expect a continuation of the positive trend in Croatia over Easter as well.
“Since the beginning of the year, we’ve seen an increase in tourist traffic, in the pre-season, we saw an increase of 9% in arrivals and 6% in overnight stays compared to the same period last year,” said HTZ director Kristjan Staničić.
He added that in the current part of March, more than 502 hotels across the country have achieved tourist traffic and that “it’s to be expected that almost 60 percent of hotel facilities nationwide will be open for Easter.” Based on the state of reservations in Croatia over Easter, hoteliers are optimistic for the whole year,” pointed out the director of the Croatian Tourism Association (HUT) Veljko Ostojić.
“For the Easter weekend, more specifically from Friday to Monday, we expect about 100,000 tourist arrivals and about 400,000 overnight stays to be realised,” said Ostojić.
According to research by HUT and the Association of Croatian Hotel Entrepreneurs (UHPA), the majority of respondents expect a very good season, and 95% of them have had more reservations this March compared to last March. The same number of them expect an increase in overnight stays in the pre-season (until July the 1st), and 94% expect an increase in the number of overnight stays throughout the year.
The most tourists in Croatia over Easter are expected in Dubrovnik, Rovinj, Poreč, Zagreb, Split, Zadar and Opatija. In addition, many Croats are planning to travel around the country and abroad for the Easter holidays, more frequently to distant destinations. This was stated by the president of the Association of Travel Agencies (UHPA), Tomislav Fain.
“The sale of arrangements for abroad to Croatian travellers is better than it was last year. In the physical sense, we have already exceeded the numbers from back in 2019,” emphasised Fain.
In order for the continental part of the country to “catch up” with the coast, Minister of Tourism and Sport Nikolina Brnjac recently awarded sixteen contracts for the construction or renovation of public tourist infrastructure for the development of health tourism. These contracts are worth a massive 106.4 million euros in total and are grants from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO).
