Traditionally, most of Pula’s visitors came from Germany, next in line come the Italians with an increase of five percent and guests from the United Kingdom with an increase of 11 percent, meaning that European visitors continue to be Pula’s most numerous guests.
As Glas Istre/A Dagostin writes on the 6th of January, 2020, Pula has yet another record-breaking tourist year behind it, with 2019 bringing in 465,160 guests to the popular Istrian city, up by six percent from 2018, and 2,306,309 overnight stays, up by 3.5 percent when compared to 2018.
”All the companies that deal with tourism in various ways, as well as all others who support tourism, as well as the City of Pula itself with its companies and institutions, certainly deserve this. Various events are responsible for the results, with Pula at the very top in terms of their numbers and their diversity in all of Croatia. These events run throughout the year, from the Arena, to Kaštela, to the streets and squares,” says Pula Tourist Board Director Sanja Cinkopan Korotaj.
From June to September, from two to four events are held daily, and in other months the number of events have been increasing year by year.
As previously mentioned, the most numerous guests to Pula come from Germany, Italy and Britain, signalling that fellow European tourists love the city a lot. Local guests ranked fourth with 135,267 overnight stays and an 11 percent increase achieved. When it comes to type of capacity, the largest increase in overnight stays was recorded by vessels with 10 percent, which is excellent news for Croatia’s nautical tourism, followed by small private renters with an increase of seven percent, apartments owned by companies with a five percent increase, hotels with a three percent increase and camps with a one percent increase.
”Hostels can be said to be at the level of last year, and the apartment complexes realised fewer nights because the Arena Hospitality Group intended part of these facilities to be for their workers, which aren’t included in tourist overnight stays,” explained Cinkopan Korotaj.
In the period between December the 27th, 2019 and January the 1st, 2020, there were 4,413 overnight stays realised in Pula, which is actually 1,870 overnight stays less than were realised in 2018.
”The reason for that is the earlier closure of the Park Plaza Histria Hotel, which otherwise remained open during that period, was to reconstruct some parts of it. Despite this, apartments belonging to small renters and businesses increased by two percent, which means that there were more individuals and fewer groups, which is evident through the structure of guests according to the countries of arrival,” continued Cinkopan Korotaj.
Unlike in previous years, when guests from Italy and Austria came during the New Year holidays, more often in organised groups, in 2019 Croatian guests were the most numerous, followed by guests from neighbouring Slovenia, Italy and Germany.
Despite the smaller number of guests staying overnight in Pula, many groups from all over Istria could be seen throughout the city, and a larger amount of individual visits of guests from other cities was noticed, which certainly contributed to the impressive attendance figures of the “December in Pula” event.
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