Busy Easter Helps Tourism Grow 20% in 2018

Trogir

A busy Easter period has held Croatia hit record tourism numbers in the first three months of 2018.

From 30 March – 2 April, Croatia welcomed 91,497 tourist arrivals. In that period 285,761 overnight stays were created. Most tourists arrived from Germany, Croatia, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, UK and the United States.

Overall tourism in the first three months of 2018 in Croatia is up 19% from the same period last year, which was a record year for Croatian tourism. According to data from the eVisitor and eCrew platforms, from 1 January to 31 March 2018, 894,000 tourists arrived in Croatia, creating 2.3 million overnight stays.

Out of the total number of tourists, foreigners made up 596,000 of them.

The most visited region in Croatia in the opening three months was Istria where 545,000 overnight stays were realised. Zagreb was next (401,000), followed by Kvarner (334,000), Split-Dalmatia (273,000), Dubrovnik-Neretva (222,000), Zadar (118,000), Sibenik-Knin (77,000) and Lika (36,000).

Istria is the most visited region so far in 2018 (Photo: Poreč Open Air)

Tourists from Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Slovenia, and Italy created the most overnights from January to March.

“Positive tourist results for the first three months and the Easter weekend are the success of all-year tourism in Croatia which has year after year broken records and made Croatia one of the most important tourist destinations in the world,” Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli said.

“The result is due to great preparation and joint activities of all stakeholders in tourism, both the private and public sector. It is also important to point out the support of our government that recognized the importance of tourism for the entire economy of the country, which has contributed to increasing the quality, income and arrivals and visitors’ nights.”

Zagreb has been busy in the opening three months

Croatian Tourism Board Director Kristjan Staničić emphasized that the results were the result of numerous promotional activities as well as excellent preparation for the season.

“The results achieved during the first three months of this year and the results achieved during the Easter weekend confirm our announcements about a good tourist year. Our goal is to keep positive trends during the pre-season, ie during April, May and June, so at the level of the first half of the year we expect cumulative growth of tourist traffic by 10-15%. To achieve this, we will continue to implement key marketing and PR activities on broadcasting markets, as well as quality relationships with key partners, tour operators and airline companies, which confirm the growth of demand for Croatian destinations and announce the introduction of numerous new air routes,” said Staničić, adding to the fact that significant growth has been achieved in the first three months by remote markets such as the United States and South Korea.