In the first half of 2022, 55 foreign ships with 189,000 passengers made 240 cruise trips in Croatia's Adriatic, state agency Hina said on Friday, citing publicly available data released by the state statistics bureau.

Last year, due to Covid restrictions, there were only 15 cruise ships with 8,000 passengers. The passengers in this year’s first half stayed in Croatia 466 days, or 423 more than in H1 2021.

In H1 2021, all foreign ship cruises were registered in June, whereas this past June there were 105 cruises with 92,000 passengers. The first half of 2019, a record year for Croatia’s tourism, saw 12 percent more foreign cruise ships and 54 percent more passengers than in H1 2022.

In the first half of this year, the foreign cruise ships sailed under 13 flags, a majority of the trips, 66 or 27.5 percent of all, from the Bahamas, followed by Malta with 45 cruise trips, Panama (26) and Italy (25).

Forty-six percent of the trips were registered in Dubrovnik-Neretva County, followed by Split-Dalmatia County (31 percent), while 23.4 percent were registered in Zadar, Primorje-Gorski Kotar, Istria, and Sibenik-Knin County.

Dubrovnik was the most visited seaport, followed by Split, Zadar, Hvar, Korčula, Sibenik, and Rovinj.