January the 8th, 2026 – An extremely impressive 110 million overnight stays were realised in Croatian tourism as a whole throughout 2025.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, according to data from the eVisitor system, which includes tourist traffic generated in commercial and non-commercial facilities as well as in the nautical charter (eCrew system), more than 21.8 million arrivals and 110.1 million overnight stays were recorded in Croatian tourism in 2025. That massive figure represents a 2 percent increase in arrivals and 1 percent in overnight stays compared to 2024.
Of this, 104.6 million overnight stays were achieved on the Adriatic, which is 1 percent more than in 2024, while 5.6 million overnight stays were achieved on the continent, including Zagreb, which represents a growth of 2 percent compared to 2024.
“We’re satisfied with the results we achieved, which this year were also record-breaking in all segments. We had a record pre-season and post-season in which we made a special breakthrough in December with more than a million overnight stays recorded. For the first time in history, we exceeded 110 million overnight stays, and with all that, we also achieved record revenues. When we know that in parallel with all these results, we’ve also successfully implemented one of the most demanding reforms in tourism – the reform of accommodation capacities, for which we already have concrete indicators of positive changes, then 2025 has been a very successful tourism year overall. New challenges now lie ahead of us, because 2026 brings us many changes, from unstable geopolitical events, economic situations in our source markets to general changes in tourism trends.
In this context, price competitiveness will be one of the crucial factors and we must all take seriously all the warnings and signals that the markets send us. We’re very intensively starting all promotional activities, from presentations at the world’s largest fairs to numerous campaigns in markets, and only with a serious and responsible approach of the entire sector to the challenges that lie ahead, can we repeat these results in 2026,” said Minister of Tourism and Sports Tonči Glavina.
Looking at the counties, the most overnight stays recorded in Croatian tourism in 2025 were recorded in Istria (30.3 million overnight stays), followed by Split-Dalmatia County (20.9 million overnight stays), Kvarner (18.5 million overnight stays), Zadar County (15.5 million overnight stays), Dubrovnik-Neretva County (9.3 million overnight stays), Šibenik-Knin County (6.6 million overnight stays) and Lika-Senj County (3.5 million overnight stays), while looking at the destinations, the most overnight stays in 2025 were recorded in Dubrovnik, Rovinj, Split, Poreč and Umag.
“Excellent Croatian tourism results in 2025, achieved despite complex global circumstances, inflationary pressures and climate change, motivate us to continue working and achieving the set goals in 2026. In addition to the growth of tourist traffic in the pre- and post-season and the profiling of Croatia as a year-round destination, we will emphasise the continued development of premium and sustainable tourism, intensifying cooperation with airlines, tour operators and travel platforms, communication of specific tourist products and digital campaigns to strengthen the brand and encourage early bookings, including messages from the “Local host” project in markets with strong demand for homestay accommodation. 2026 opens up new opportunities, but also presents us with challenges related to price competitiveness and security, with the main goal of the entire Croatian tourism sector being to provide quality and value for money,” said Kristjan Staničić, Director of the Croatian National Tourist Board.
Looking at the markets, last year the most overnight stays in the country were achieved by tourists from Germany (22.3 million overnight stays), Croatia (13.8 million overnight stays), Slovenia (11.1 million overnight stays), Austria (8.2 million overnight stays), Poland (7.3 million overnight stays), the Czech Republic (4.9 million overnight stays) and the UK (4.1 million overnight stays).
The Croatian tourism sector also achieved excellent results in the otherwise very quiet month of December, with 450,000 arrivals and 1.1 million overnight stays, which represents a 7 percent increase in arrivals and 7 percent in overnight stays compared to December 2024. The most overnight stays were achieved in Kvarner and Istria and Split-Dalmatia County, and viewed by destinations in Zagreb, Opatija, Split, Dubrovnik and Rovinj.
Particularly good results were achieved during the Christmas and New Year holidays, i.e. in the period from December the 24th to January the 1st, during which more than 188,000 arrivals and more than 541,000 overnight stays were recorded in Croatia, which represents an 8 percent increase in arrivals and 8 percent in overnight stays compared to the same previous period. The highest number of overnight stays was recorded in the destinations Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Opatija, Poreč and Split, and viewed by type of accommodation in hotels (279,000 overnight stays) and household facilities (128,000 overnight stays).
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