Croatia sees 90% drop in foreign visitors in October

Dubrovnik

ZAGREB, Dec 13 (Hina) – The number of tourists staying in commercial accommodation in October this year was at 17% of the figures for October 2019 while overnight stays were at 20% of last year’s figures for that month, which makes October one of the months with the poorest results in 2020, marked by the coronavirus pandemic.

Figures from the national statistical office show that 184,500 tourists stayed in commercial accommodation facilities in October this year, generating 618,000 overnight stays, down 82.8% and 79.9% respectively from October 2019.

Greater decline rates were recorded in April and May (97% and 99% respectively) and a more marked drop was also reported in March (a 70% decrease in overnight stays).

The statistics also show that foreign visitors accounted for most or 406,800 overnight stays, a drop of 85% compared to October 2019. The number of foreign visitors dropped even more, by 90% from October 2019 to 88,800.

Figures for domestic tourists dropped less, by 47.3% to 95,800 visitors, and they generated 211,000 overnight stays in commercial accommodation units, a drop of 45.4%.

As for foreign guests, Germans were again the most loyal visitors, with 131,000 overnight stays or 32.2% of all foreign overnight stays.

They were followed, but with much lower shares in the total number of overnight stays, of 8% and less, by visitors from the United States, Slovenia, Austria, Poland, France, the Czech Republic and Italy. They, too, came in smaller numbers and generated fewer overnight stays than in October 2019.

Istria County recorded the most overnight stays, 156,000, accounting for 25.3% of total overnight stays in October.

Physical indicators for October have also affected results in commercial accommodation in the first ten months of the year, which saw 6.9 million tourists and 40.3 million overnight stays, which are decreases of 63.6% and 55% respectively compared to the same period of 2019.

According to type of accommodation, rooms, apartments and holiday houses accounted for slightly less than a half of all overnight stays, or 277,000, a drop of 68.4% from last year’s October.

Hotels saw a bigger drop, of 87.4%, reporting 220,000 overnight stays.