The Croatian tourism industry continued to see positive trends in April, with 876,600 tourist arrivals and 2.8 million overnight stays, increases of 260 percent and 231 percent year-on-year, state agency Hina said on Wednesday, carrying a press release from the state tourist board HTZ.

In the first four months of 2022, 1.6 million tourists stayed in Croatia, or 171 percent up from the same period in 2021, while the number of overnight stays increased by 150 percent to slightly over 5 million.

Compared with the all-time best results in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the number of tourist arrivals registered in April 2022 was still 25 percent down, while overnight stays were 15 percent down. Over the first four months of 2022, the arrivals were 24 percent down and overnight stays were 11 percent down from 2019.

By nationality of visitors, in April 2022 Germans were the largest group in terms of overnight stays (472,200), ahead of Croatians (470,000) and Slovenians (423,300). The top five also include Austrians and Britons.

By county, the largest number of tourist overnights was recorded in Istria County (959,000), followed by the Kvarner region (447,000) and Split-Dalmatia County (397,000). The capital Zagreb recorded 171,000 overnight stays, which is more than all the other continental regions combined (156,200).

In the first four months of the year, the largest number of overnight stays was generated by Croatian tourists (1.3 million), Slovenians (643,300) and Germans (638,300). They were followed by tourists from Austria and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Istria recorded the largest number of overnight stays (1.5 million), ahead of Kvarner (827,900) and Split-Dalmatia County (675,400). Zagreb followed with 517,600 overnight stays, which was again more than all the other continental regions combined (460,000).

On 1 May, the Labour Day holiday, about 175,000 tourists visited Croatia, which was 48,000 more than on the same day in 2021 and 22,000 fewer than in 2019.