September the 5th, 2025 – The Croatian tourist season has been a good one thus far in 2025, but there’s room for improvement, particularly when it comes to the tired old subject of price stabilisation.

As Sinisa Malus/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, according to the first incomplete data from the praised eVisitor system, the height of the Croatian tourist season has been great in 2025. 17.2 million arrivals and 89.8 million overnight stays in the first eight months of this year were recorded, which is an increase of +2 percent in arrivals and +0.5 percent in overnight stays compared to the same period last year. Of these, more than 86 million overnight stays were recorded on the Adriatic coast and the islands. There were also almost two million overnight stays on the continent, while 1.8 million overnight stays were recorded in the City of Zagreb itself.

spending habits like never before

“The Croatian tourist season for 2025 has been recording record results both in terms of tourist traffic and consumption. We’re satisfied with what has been achieved, although we still have room for improvement, especially in the context of further price stabilisation, which remains a key factor for the rest of the year, as well as for preparations for next year. We manage tourism according to the principles of sustainability, as defined by the strategic and legislative framework. With the package of laws in the triangle of tax, spatial and tourism policy, which entered into force this year, we’re creating a sustainable structure of accommodation capacities,” said Tonči Glavina, Minister of Tourism and Sport.

When we segment Croatia’s tourism results by counties, during the first eight months of 2025, the highest number of overnight stays was achieved in Istria (25.2 million, which is +0.3 percent), Split-Dalmatia County (16.9 million, which is +0.6 percent) and Kvarner (15.2 million, which is +0.1).

In addition to record tourist traffic, Croatian tourism has also recorded “never-before-seen” spending in 2025, generated throughout the year. 3.6 percent more receipts were recorded than last year, representative of 9.9 percent higher value. That is equal to almost six billion euros on 310 million receipts printed. The data for July and August show that 111 million invoices worth three million euros were issued, representing seven percent more.

growth in air traffic

Data on all types of transport also showed increases compared to last year. There was especially strong growth in air traffic, which both Glavina and Staničić assessed as important for the pre-season and long-distance markets, which have been growing significantly this year compared to last year, particularly in the case of the USA, Australia, Canada, China and Korea.

“Croatia has a stable position on the international tourism market. Given the good announcements from partners and feedback from the market, in the upcoming post-season we expect trends that will further strengthen the result on an annual level. We’re particularly pleased with the contribution of the domestic market to the overall results, as well as the contribution of certain distant markets, especially the USA, from which we achieved almost 600,000 arrivals in the first eight months of 2025. That means that Americans have entered the top 10 guests for Croatian tourism in 2025, that’s the first time in history according to the criterion of achieved arrivals in this period of the year,” said Kristjan Staničić, Director of the Croatian National Tourist Board.

the germans remain on top

Looking at the markets, in the first eight months of this year, the most overnight stays were achieved by tourists from the markets of Germany (17.2 million overnight stays), Croatia (11.2 million overnight stays), Slovenia (9.5 million overnight stays) and Austria (6.5 million overnight stays). When we look at the realised overnight stays by type of accommodation, the announced overnight stays were realised in private accommodation (so-called household facilities) (33.9 million overnight stays), hotels (19.6 million overnight stays), and campsites (17.7 million overnight stays).

In the context of the results in July and August, 9.6 million arrivals and more than 60.4 million overnight stays were realised across Croatia, which is a 0.5 percent lag in arrivals and 1.3 percent in overnight stays compared to the same period last year.

They believe that the EU regulation on short-term rentals, which is due to come into force at the end of May 2026, will also contribute to better regulation of accommodation. Through that measure, the European Commission wants to introduce more order into the rental of accommodation to tourists, that reservation platforms exchange data with the competent authorities in real time, and that they can only rent facilities that are registered and categorised for this purpose.


 


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