November the 5th, 2025 – Croatian tourism breaks records across the board, but old problems remain. There’s only so much we can influence, and the weather is absolutely not one of them.
As Dalmatinski Portal writes, Croatia has never had a more financially successful tourist season, with the latest data showing a 20 percent increase in fiscalised receipts and bills. However, in spite of Croatian tourism breaking records, the entire sector still faces numerous challenges, from intense seasonality to the method of financing all kinds of brand new investments.
Goran Fabris, a member of the Rudan company’s Management Board, believes that the financial indicators are excellent, but that Croatian tourism still depends largely on weather conditions and that headlines in the style of “Croatian tourism breaks records” can easily fall short if it starts raining.
“If bad weather occurs, for example rain, a lot of effort poured into improving the season as things are prepared simply goes down the drain. We have to be realistic – weather still plays a big role in everything. Although autumn has brought exceptionally favourable temperatures, it’s very clear that earnings continue to accumulate in the height of the summer season itself,” Fabris told HRT.
He emphasised that the pre-season and post-season in Croatia are absolutely crucial because they extend the time of work and employment within this incredibly important sector, all while increasing the overall quality of service.
“When you lose one night in the season, you need four or five nights outside of the season to make up for it,” he added.
The Novotel hotel, the largest private investment in Croatian tourism this year, recently opened in Zagreb. It is worth 25 million euros and is aimed at the blossoming niche of congress and conference tourism which Croatia is doing well in cashing in on.
“We have 163 rooms and employ 70 people. We started the project back in 2017, construction was slowed down by the coronavirus pandemic, but we didn’t give up and we’re proud to have completed it all,” said Matej Krištić, a member of the Board of Directors of Rox. Minister of Tourism Tonči Glavina stressed the importance of congress tourism for the development of year-round business for the sector, which Krištić also confirmed.
“The City of Zagreb has plenty of potential for tourism throughout the year, and hotel capacities like ours contribute to that goal,” he stated, before turning his attention to the topic of new models of financing in tourism, which are always needed.
Fabris believes that tourism projects are risky and long-term, meaning that banks should finance them more flexibly. He believes that it is necessary to introduce so-called balloon financing, where the investor would repay only the interest for several years.
“Simply put, it’s almost impossible to expect such projects to pay off with loans of 10 or 12 years without a minimum of 40% equity, and the question then is at what speed we can further develop new capacities, and we do want new capacities, but high quality capacities,” he concluded.
