Some 17.2 million tourists visited Croatia over the first nine months of 2022, who made 99.7 million overnight stays, state agency Hina said on Thursday, citing a press release sent to the media by the Tourism Ministry, which cited data from the national electronic registry of visitors.

Compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the figure of arrivals is still 8 percent down, and the number of overnight stays is 3 percent down. Compared 2021, this year’s records are 37 percent up for arrivals and 24 percent up for overnight stays.

The ministry said that 88.2 million stays were generated by foreign visitors, and 11.5 million by domestic tourists.

As usual, the top six counties in terms of overnight stays were all coastal areas: Istria County topped the chart with 28.5 million, followed by Split-Dalmatia with 18.6 million overnight stays, Primorje-Gorski Kotar with 17.5 million, Zadar County with 14.5 million, Dubrovnik-Neretva with 7.4 million, and Sibenik-Knin with 6.5 million overnight stays.

As for individual towns, Istria’s Rovinj topped the list with 4 million, followed by Dubrovnik with 3.4 million, Porec with 3.3 million, Medulin with 2.9 million, and Split with 2.8 million. By nationality, the bulk was generated by Germans, at 24 million stays, followed by Slovenes, with 9.7 million, and Austrians, with 7.7 million. They were followed Poles (6.5 million), the Czech (5.9 million), Italians (4 million), Britons (3.4 million), Slovakians (3.3 million), and the Dutch (3.2 million).

Broken down by type of accommodation, renting out private-owned apartments is still in the lead, with 38.2 million stays, with hotels coming in second (20.5 million) and campsites third (20.3 million).

In September 2022 alone, 2.2 million arrivals and 12.9 million overnights stays were reported, increases of 16 percent and 7 percent respectively compared to September 2021.