Record 2016: 16.3 Million Visitors to Croatia

Record 2016 (photo: Vis by Ante Babic)

Croatian tourism has had a record year in 2016. According to official statistics from the eVistor and eCrew (nautical) systems, a record 16.3 million tourists visited Croatia in 2016.

The 16.3 million arrivals, which is around 2.2 million more than last year, created a record 91.3 million overnight stays, which is 11 million more than in 2015.

Out of the total visitor arrivals from 1 January to 28 December 444,456 were nautical tourists.

“Next year we expect to extend the season and increase tourist spending. Taking into account the development of new products and the construction of new hotel capacity, we expect tourist spending to increase by 800 million euros”, Minister of Tourism Gari Cappelli said.

The most overnight stays recorded in 2016 was in Istria (25 million), followed by the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (17 million).

Rovinj (photo; CTB)

Split-Dalmatia was next with 16 million, followed by Zadar County (11 million) and Dubrovnik-Neretva County (8.73 million).

When it came to destinations, Dubrovnik recorded the most overnight stays in 2016, followed by Rovinj, Poreč, Medulin, Umag, Mali Lošinj, Crikvenica, Funtana and Zagreb.

Germans were once again the leading tourists to visit Croatia this year, followed by the Slovenes, Austrians, Italians, Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, Slovaks, Dutch and Hungarians. The Germans, Austrians and Brits stayed the longest.

Zagreb (photo credit: Sandra Tralic)

In December Zagreb recorded the most overnight stays in the country. From 1 – 28 December 2016 there were 249,529 tourist arrivals and 495,437 overnight stays in Croatia.

Zagreb was the most popular, with Dubrovnik, Opatija, Split, Zadar, Rovinj, Poreč, Rijeka and Pula behind.