Seventy-six cruise ships from 13 countries visited Croatian seaports in the first nine months of 2022, making 519 visits, according to data from the state statistics bureau (DZS).

Compared with the first nine months of 2021, the number of trips by foreign cruise ships increased by 385. They brought 506,000 passengers who spent a total of 1,101 days in Croatia.

The increase was due to the fact that last year foreign cruise trips were subject to restrictions imposed over the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year the largest number of trips were made by vessels sailing under the flag of the Bahamas (133), Malta (120), Italy (58) and Panama (53).

The number of passengers on the cruise ships was 368,000 higher than last year.

Of the 519 visits, 44.9% were made to Dubrovnik-Neretva County, 31.2% to Split-Dalmatia County and the remaining 23.9% to Zadar County, Istria County, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and Sibenik-Knin County.

Two thirds of visits registered in Dubrovnik

The largest number of visits by foreign cruise ships were registered in Dubrovnik (342), followed by Split (211) and Zadar (117).

In the first nine months of this year, compared with the first nine months of the record-breaking year 2019, the number of visits by foreign cruise ships was down 8.5%, the number of days spent by cruise ships in Croatia was down 3.2% and the number of passengers was down 42.9%.