Croatia’s 2013 Tourism Stars

Croatia’s Tourism Ministry have confirmed that the first 8 months of the year have produced ‘excellent’ tourism results, with 2012’s record-breaking year under serious threat. What regions this year though have been the shining stars for the tourism board?

The western region of Istria, which caused concern earlier in the year with its low tourist arrival numbers, is the nations best performer thus far in 2013. The best performing destination when it comes to the number of overnight stays, which reflects both the length of stay and the number of visitors and is considered a key indicator for accommodation statistics, was the popular town of Rovinj on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula which recorded 2.6 million overnight stays and 374,000 arrivals so far this year.

Croatia’s best performer – Rovinj

In second place behind Rovinj was another Istrian town, Poreč, with 2.2 million overnight stays and 337 arrivals. Dubrovnik is also having a very pleasing season, which is still going strong, recording 2 million overnight stays recently, 12 days earlier than last year. The record-breaking destination in terms of overnight stays growth in 2013 compared to last year was the capital Zagreb and the Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Zagreb and the Zadar county had the recorded the highest growth in arrival numbers in 2013 from 2012.