Nearly 13 million tourists stayed in commercial accommodation in Croatia in 2021 and generated 70 million bed nights, which are increases of 82.5% and 72.1% compared with 2020, while compared with record 2019 the number of tourist arrivals was down by 35% and that of bed nights by 23%, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The number of domestic tourists in commercial accommodation increased by 47% from 2020 to 2.1 million and the number of bed nights rose by 36% to 7.4 million. Compared with 2019, the number of tourists fell by 3.5% while the number of bed nights increased by 3.6%.

The number of foreign tourists grew by 92% from 2020 to 10.6 million and they generated nearly 63 million bed nights, up by 77.6%. Compared with 2019, the number of foreign tourists was down by 38.7% and that of bed nights by 25.3%.

Among the foreign visitors, Germans were the most numerous (2.7 million, +85%). They generated nearly 20 million bed nights (+70%), or nearly 32% of all foreign bed nights in commercial accommodation. They were followed by Poles, Slovenians, Austrians and Czechs, who all generated more bed nights than in 2020.

By region, Istria County recorded the largest number of tourists and bed nights – 3.4 million and 21.7 million respectively, which are increases of 94.2% and 90% compared with 2020. It was followed by Split-Dalmatia County (2.3 million tourists, 13.5 million bed nights) and Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (2.2 million tourists, 12.4 million bed nights), which were increases for both counties.

By type of commercial accommodation, the largest number of nights were spent in holiday and short-stay accommodation (including private households) – 37 million, which is an increase of 50.1% compared with 2020.

Camping grounds followed with 17.5 million nights (+91.5%), while 15.7 million nights were spent in hotels, twice as many as in 2020.