According to preliminary official data from the eVisitor system which contains tourist growth in commercial and non-commercial capacity, and according to the system eCrew which contains the tourist traffic of nautical charter, Croatia in the year 2016 achieved 16.3 million arrivals and 91.3 million overnight stays. The results represent roughly 11 million more overnight stays compared to 2015.
HRTurizam reports on December 30, 2016 that analyzing only the data from eVisitor, Croatia was visited by 15,828,000 guests (14 million foreign) who made up a total of 88,223,000 overnight stays (78 million were foreign overnights). In nautical charter from January 1 to December 28 this year, 444,456 arrivals and 3,056,901 overnight stays were recorded, says the Ministry of Tourism.
“This tourist traffic represents an excellent result which is certainly a result of the good work of the private and the public sector, synergies in all activities, increases in investment, and good marketing activities. Next year, we expect to extend the season and increase tourist spending, taking into account the development of new products and the construction of new hotel capacity in the amount of 800 million euros,” said Minister Cappelli.
Director of the Croatian Tourist Board Ratomir Ivičić agreed with Minister Cappelli and said that the results achieved this year for Croatian tourism represent a major challenge in the coming year in which the fundamental objective is to maintain these growth trends.
“Every year we play a new championship, with new tactics, in order to win the competition. Croatian tourism from year to year has increased in tourist traffic, and to this trend, we must maintain its offer and activities throughout the year,” concluded the Director Ivičić.
Looking at the tourist traffic from eVisitor system by counties, most overnights were realized in the County of Istria (25 million), Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (17 million), Split-Dalmatia County (16 million), the County of Zadar (11 million), Dubrovnik-Neretva County (8.73 million), Sibenik-Knin (6 million) and Lika-Senj (2.8 million). The city of Zagreb recorded 1.9 million overnight stays and Karlovac County carried out 471,000 overnights.
Looking at tourist traffic accomplished by destination, the most overnights in 2016 were recorded in Dubrovnik, followed by Rovinj, Porec, Medulin, Umag, Mali Lošinj, Crikvenica, Funtana, Zagreb and Novalja.
This year, most of the arrivals and overnight stays came from Germany, followed by guests from Slovenia, Austria, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, the Netherlands and Hungary. In the area of accommodation, most overnights in hotels were achieved by guests from Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom. In camps, most overnight stays were by guests from Germany, Slovenia and the Netherlands, and guests from Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic made the most overnights for family accommodation.
