A total of 18.8 million tourists visited Croatia in the first nine months of 2019, up 4.5% year on year, and they generated almost 103 million overnight stays, an increase of 2% y-o-y, the Croatian Tourist Board (HTZ) said on Wednesday.

The data collected by the eVisitor system was published on the HTZ website, indicating that in the period from January to September, almost 17 million foreign tourists visited Croatia, an increase of 4% compared to the same period last year, generating 90.4 million bed nights, up 1.3%.

Domestic tourists accounted for 2 million arrivals, which is an increase of 9.3% y-o-y and they generated an increase of 7% in bed nights or a total of almost 12.5 million.

Domestic tourists accounted for the second-most numerous group, after Germans.

According to HTZ figures, 44% of all bed nights were generated in family accommodation, 26% in hotels or in absolute numbers 38.2 million bed nights were in family accommodation or 2.6% more y-o-y while bed nights in hotels increased by 1.6% or almost 23 million.

“So far in October 350,000 more tourists have been recorded, which is an increase of 6% compared to the same period in 2018 and an even greater increase of 10% has been recorded in bed nights, or 1.3 million,” HTZ concluded.