June the 6th, 2025 – Germans are among Croatia’s most numerous and faithful visitors, but will changing German travel habits hit Croatian tourism in 2025?
As Radmila Kovacevic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, news that no tourism-oriented country wants to hear has been circulating around Germany. The Germans are typically great lovers of travel. Annually, they embark on as many as 251 million private and business trips, of which almost 70 million are holidays with more than five nights spent away. There are many reasons why German tourists are the type of guests you could only wish for.
changing german travel habits and croatian tourism in 2025…
In many Mediterranean countries, including Croatia, they’re by far the most numerous, and they are also known for their loyalty to places they love. Older generations of guests from Germany are known to return to the same Adriatic hosts for several decades. Worryingly, a new survey shows that travel optimism among German nationals is waning. An opinion poll was conducted in May among 2,000 German citizens, and the result is one that no tourist host can bury their head in the sand in response to. According to the aforementioned online survey, commissioned by the Federal Association of the German Tourism Industry, it seems that almost one in three Germans is revising their travel plans for this year. 20 percent of Germans intend to travel less often than last year, and 11 percent will shorten their planned trip.
three million germans choose croatia
The economic situation in the outbound tourism market, which dictates European trends, is taking its toll even on what Germans consider a necessity. Travel has long since ceased to be considered a luxury. For destinations like Croatia, the good news is that in spite of heat waves and wildfires in popular tourist regions, two-thirds of the Germans surveyed are still planning their longest holidays between June and September.
At the same time, as many as 54 percent of Germans will choose a destination primarily taking into account costs. For 45 percent of the respondents, the first criterion will be the political situation, or safety and security in the host country. These are the topics that worry families the most, and many will shorten their usual two-week main trip to four or a maximum of nine nights. At the same time, only one in ten Germans – mostly from households with a monthly net income of more than 4,000 euros – will travel without financial worries. In 2025, only one in ten German tourists will go on holiday more often and spend more than they did last year while there.
Croatia is adored by German tourists, and it remains the chosen country of three million people. It’s the first time we’ve managed to reach that number since before the pandemic. A record number of guests from Germany was recorded back in 2022, when more than 3.4 million German tourists visited the country in the then strange, very specific post-pandemic circumstances.
Since then, the number has been falling, stopping at just under 3.2 million last year. During the first four months of this year, there were just over 175,000 German guests in this country, and they achieved 738,293 overnight stays. There were 1.2 percent fewer German visitors than in the same period last year, but in terms of overnight stays, they exceeded the first four months of last year by as much as ten percent. Whether May’s results have changed the situation will only be revealed in a few days, but something can be taken from an Istrian example. On Croatia’s largest peninsula, where overnight stays by German guests account for as much as a third of the total tourist traffic, a significant drop in visits from Germany was recorded in the five-month period. The director of the local Tourist Board, Denis Ivošević, doesn’t actually expect any increases in the rest of the tourist year.
pluses and minuses as german travel plans cause worry for croatian tourism
“Since the beginning of the year, the number of German visitors in Istria been variable, depending on the holidays. In April, there were as many as 84 percent more German guests due to a later Easter, and they achieved 72 percent more overnight stays than last year in that month. In May, however, there were 60 percent fewer German guests than in the same month last year, even though both Pentecost and Corpus Christi fell during that month. This year, those holidays are in June and we’re therefore counting on a plus in the number of German guests arriving in Istria. In total, during the first five months of 2025, there were 39 percent fewer Germans holidaying in Istria. We’ll only have a realistic picture of the German market on July the 1st. June will likely be good, but we don’t know exactly how good,” said Ivošević.
Hr also noted that the number of visits from Germany to Istria has been falling since 2022. A continued drop can’t be ruled out this year, either. He added that he isn’t majorly concerned about the possible minus for several reasons.
“It’s become clear that it’s difficult to expect new records from a country where people typically are not used to economic worries. With that being said, it would be difficult to maintain atypical, rapid post-pandemic growth even if the German economy were to suddenly flourish. Unlike the record-breaking year of 2022, travel restrictions have all but been completely forgotten now, and the whole world is once again competing equally to attract German travellers.
will german travel habits and their affect on croatian tourism have their origins in high prices?
According to Ivošević, the issue of high Croatian prices are only problematic when they fail to be accompanied by matching quality. “In Istria, business is doing best with the best villas, hotels, camps, restaurants… In addition to much higher prices, they also have much better occupancy. This means that the market clearly perceives the relationship between price and quality, regardless of the amounts involved,” concluded Ivošević.
