March the 31st, 2025 – An excellent start for Karlovac County as tourist numbers are on the up. There was a 15% rise in the number of arrivals in January 2025 compared to January 2024, as well as an 11% rise in overnight stays recorded.
The need to spread Croatian tourism inwards from the coast to more continental parts of the country has been a burning topic for several years now. As more foreign visitors begin discovering Croatia away from the beach, Zagreb has more firmly found its place on the tourism map, and areas like Slavonia and Karlovac County, which isn’t far from either Zagreb or the famous Plitvice Lakes National Park, are gradually managing to do the same.
As KAportal writes, the beginning of the year is traditionally not full of foreign arrivals. That’s true for the entire country, and not just the more overlooked parts of it. Dalmatia typically sits rather empty, and the uninspiring winds that batter the coastline don’t exactly lend themselves to spending much time outdoors. That said, positive figures are always encouraging. While the coast was always the first to begin seeing an uptick in tourist numbers, things have finally started to improve for continental Croatia. In that same vein, Karlovac County has seen some encouraging tourist numbers for January 2025. That’s something that wouldn’t be heard of just a few years ago.
During 2025’s maiden month, Croatia as a whole saw its number of tourist arrivals increase by 11%, and its overnight stays increase by 9% in comparison to the same month last year. In Karlovac County, this increase in tourist numbers was even more pronounced.
To be more specific, Karlovac County was visited by 15% more guests in January than it was back during the same month last year. This continental county also managed to achieve 11.2% more overnight stays. The number of tourist arrivals grew for both domestic (14%) and foreign (16.3%) guests, while the number of overnight stays increased significantly when it comes to domestic guests (by as much as 22%). The number of overnight stays by foreign guests in Karlovac County however was lower than it was back in 2024 by almost 6%.
In total, 5,623 tourists visited Karlovac County in the first month of 2024. Thet spent 10,867 nights there, which gives a very good average of almost 2 nights per tourist (1.93).
It should be added that for Karlovac County, the number of tourist arrivals includes only those guests of the city who spent at least one night there. That means that single day trips, which are also increasingly common in the wider Karlovac area, haven’t been included in this sum.
That said, these figures are more than encouraging for Karlovac County for this tourist year, especially after last year. Following continuous and significant efforts and growth over the last ten years, a small minus was recorded for the first time, despite which Karlovac County still remained the most visited county in the continental part of Croatia, with the exception of the City of Zagreb.
