July 13, 2019 – Mediatoolkit analyzed the popularity of Croatian tourism on social networks. The results show that Dubrovnik and Split are a hit on social media.
The Croatian National Tourist Board recently published the tourism numbers for June. Although it was rumored that this tourist season would be one of the weaker in several years, data for June still shows that the number of tourists increased in the first six months. Compared to last year, Croatia was visited by 6% more tourists, while the number of overnight stays grew by 3%.
Given the different perspectives on what this year’s summer season will be, the Zagreb-based technology company Mediatoolkit analyzed how Croatia was perceived on social networks from 10 June to 10 July.
Namely, Croatia was mentioned 72,869 times during this period, which represents an increase of 222.13%. On a daily level, Croatia was mentioned an average of 2,400 times, while this number will increase as the season moves forward. For comparison, one of Croatia’s major tourism competitors, Italy, was mentioned about 7,500 times a day in the same period, while the numbers for Greece and Turkey are similar to Croatia.
Compared to the previous period, the number of impressions increased by as much as 18,842% and now exceeds 34 million. The good news is that Croatia, as a tourist destination, is mentioned on the web and social networks around the world.
Most of the announcements come from the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, though they are just some of the countries that have increased the number of tourist arrivals this year according to HTZ’s data. Croatia is written in Italian the most on Twitter, while German and English are the highest on Instagram.
The majority of the mentions about Croatia were written in a positive context, namely 89.2%. Tourists mostly praise the natural beauty and the sea, and the hashtag #croatiafulloflife was used 13,273 times.
Instagram is by far the most widely used channel that publishes about Croatia. According to the analysis, 84.8% of the mentions come from Instagram, while Twitter is the second most common channel with 7.5%.
Interestingly, Croatia was declared the most sought after country on TripAdvisor in 2019. This news attracted the attention of international media such as Forbes, but in Croatia, this news was not shared much in the media.
The top three destinations in Croatia with the largest number of visitors in the first six months, according to HTZ’s data, are Rovinj, Dubrovnik, and Zagreb. When it comes to social networks and the web, only two cities are mentioned the most – Dubrovnik (12,759 mentions) and Split (7,313 mentions). On the other hand, the most visited town of Rovinj has 3,898 references, while Zagreb has 2,592.
Dubrovnik’s mentions are mostly associated with the popular Game Throne series, which is not surprising given that it has significantly increased the popularity of Dubrovnik. King’s Landing was mentioned 4,000 times, of which 741 are related to Dubrovnik and 321 to Croatia.
The sudden increase in the number of social network announcements that occurred during the summer season is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, such growth is only confirmed by the marked tourist seasonality and the lack of year-round tourism. On the other hand, the more optimistic side, recommendations are the best way of promoting the country, and tourists full of praise about the beauties of Croatia can motivate others to come. But is everyone interested in just the sun and the sea? We’re not so sure.
Year-round tourism is to some extent present in parts of Croatia. Zagreb is one of the few examples in which attendance is relatively consistent throughout the year, which confirms the latest data. One of the reasons is that throughout the year, Zagreb offers a variety of activities tourists find interesting – like Advent, it’s main winter attraction which draws in more and more tourists every year and has been more popular on social networks than Vienna. Various events take place in Zagreb in the summer, the most famous of which is the InMusic festival which attracts a large number of foreign visitors.
Croatia regularly offers excellent opportunities that should be better exploited both for its promotion and to create better content. For example, winning second place at the World Cup, taking home the Davis Cup title, and the final season of Games of Thrones are just some of the things that have influenced the arrival of tourists and can transform Croatia into a year-round tourist sensation.
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