December the 30th, 2024 – While the vast majority of new year guests in Croatia plan to stay in hotels, some are opting for the increasingly popular option of campsites. Kvarner and Istria are both counting on great numbers.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/VL/Radmila Kovacevic writes, Croatia has been hosting around 34,000 tourists over the last couple of days. That’s around 1,000 more than last weekend, and that number will only grow along the coast in the coming days as we approach the end of 2024.
Tourist hosts along the coast are getting ready for new year guests up and down the length of Croatia. Last year, around 80,000 new year guests saw off the old year and welcomed the new one in across Croatia. In destinations on the northern part of the coast, more specifically in Istria and Kvarner, there were more crowds. A similar scenario is expected over the new year period this year, as well.
new year in croatia – from north to south
Between 25,000 and 30,000 tourists will welcome the new year in up in Istria, and from December the 24th to January the 6th, there should be a total of around 45,000 people on Croatia’s largest peninsula.
“During that period, we expect between 140,000 and 150,000 overnight stays to be realised. We’re counting mainly on neighbouring Italians, Slovenians and people from elsewhere in Croatia, but there will also be Austrians and Germans visiting, too. 55 hotels have remained open across Istria, some are large and some are small family hotels. 6 or 7 campsites are also currently operating, which are mainly preferred by Slovenian and Austrian guests. This festive season should bring Istria approximately 1.5 percent better figures than one year ago,” stated Denis Ivošević, the Istria Tourist Board director. That tourist board is otherwise rounding off 2024 with five million tourist arrivals, 30 million overnight stays and a mere one percent fewer guests than in 2023.
New year visitors to Croatia will be staying all along the coast, including in the extreme south. Dubrovnik has always been among the most popular destinations for New Year’s Eve, but the largest concentration of tourists will still be on the northern part of the coast. As such, Kvarner can expect to conclude the Christmas-New Year period with around 40,000 tourists and around 130,000 overnight stays achieved.
“According to the announcements, there will be around 20,000 new year guests in Kvarner,” revealed Irena Peršić Živadinov, director of the Kvarner Tourist Board. She added that this year’s festive figures will more or less repeat last year’s excellent results.
an extension of the season
The majority of around 60 percent of new year guests visiting Croatia chose hotels for their stay. Around 25 percent of them opted instead for family accommodation, and others came with a few mobile homes in one of the Kvarner campsites that has remained open. The situation is somewhat similar in nearby Istria, which can also boast of having campsites that operate all year round for several years now.
“Yes, our campsites confirm that the season is indeed getting longer. In the Kvarner region, tourist traffic has increased by one 100 percent over the last decade from January to the end of May, and from October to the end of December,” emphasised Peršić Živadinov.
