June the 16th, 2025 – Despite inflationary woes and high prices, Croats still spent a staggering 2.3 billion euros on travel alone in 2024.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, despite inflation, Croats spent more time travelling and for more days in 2024 than they did back in 2023. The increase stood at a significant 9.1 percent, with Croats making a total of 5.5 million such trips. The majority of those trips (a total of 3.6 million of them) were to various locations across Croatia, according to recently revealed CBS data. That data also shows that Croats spent a total of 2.3 billion euros on travel in 2024.
The aforementioned CBS data also confirmed that tourist activities of Croats increased throughout 2024 compared to 2023. There were 9.7 percent more Croats (1.8 million people) who took at least one private multi-day trip, which made up 54% of the total population aged 15 and over. This means that every second resident of Croatia in that age group went on at least one private multi-day trip last year. Those who didn’t travel anywhere cited limited finances as the most common reason.
For Croats in 2024, travel was most often done by car, followed by buses and planes with a much smaller share. Of the total 5.5 million multi-day private trips made throughout 2024, 65.6 percent or 3.6 million trips took place across Croatia, which is an increase of 9.5 percent compared to 2023.
Among these trips across the country, 54.5 percent or two million were shorter trips of up to three nights, which increased by almost 16 percent compared to the year before (2023). 1.6 million trips of four or more nights were also recorded, which marks an increase of 2.7 percent. Croats travelled the most during the summer months in 2024 (June, July and August) when 40.3 percent of all annual multi-day private trips were realised in the country. Most of them took place in August, and that month accounted for 21% of the total (745,000).
As stated, Croats spent a total of 2.3 billion euros on travel in both Croatia and abroad in 2024. 1.2 billion euros were spent on trips within the country, with the average expenditure per such trip being 344 euros, which is 22.4 percent more than was recorded back in 2023.
Looking at the foreign countries Croats travelled to in 2024, 1.9 million private multi-day trips, or 8.4 percent more were made than in 2023. Croats travelled the most to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, where 20% of total multi-day trips to foreign countries were realised.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was followed by Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Serbia, Hungary and Spain. In total, Croats spent one billion euros on travel to various foreign countries in 2024. That’s an average of 551 euros per trip, which is 17 percent more than was recorded in 2023.
