Archive:Tourism statistics for Croatia

In 2012, 88 % of foreign guest nights in Croatia were spent by visitors from within the EU

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Data from January 2014. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: (dd) Month YYYY(, hh:00).

On 1 July 2013, Croatia became the 28th Member State of the European Union. With its Mediterranean climate and long Adriatic coastline, Croatia is a popular tourism destination. In 2012, residents from EU Member States made more than 7.2 million trips to Croatia, accounting for 70.4 million tourism nights and EUR 3.5 billion tourism expenditure (note: data for these variables are not including trips of residents from DK, EL, FR, PL, SE, UK).

This article takes a closer look at the importance of tourism for the Croatian economy and population.

Table, Figure or Map X: Full title of the Table, Figure or Map
Source: Eurostat (educ_ilang)

Main statistical findings

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3 out of 4 persons employed in the tourism industries work in the Horeca sector

Economic data for the tourism industries shows that, in 2011, these industries whose economic activity includes tourism characteristic activities recorded a total turnover of EUR 4.2 billion (see Table 1). This corresponds to 5.4 % of the total turnover of the non-financial business economy in Croatia, which is just below the 5.8 % share of the tourism industries in the non-financial business economy for the EU-28 as a whole. Accommodation and food service activities represented 56 % of the tourism industries’ turnover (compared to 35 % at the level of the EU-28), these two industries also accounted for 75 % of the over 120 000 persons employed in the tourism industries. The quarterly index of turnover for a subset of tourism industries (accommodation and food services, travel agency and tour operators) indicates a relatively stronger growth in Croatia over the period 2003-2013 as compared to the average evolution for the European Union (see Figure 1).

Tourism has a very strong seasonal component

Tourism activities are much more seasonal in Croatia, compared to the EU-28. Figures 2 and 3 show the more pronounced seasonal variations of the quarterly index of turnover for the accommodation and food services and for the travel agencies and tour operators respectively. The strong seasonality is confirmed by the volume data, namely the monthly number of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments presented in Figure 4. The peak months July and August accounted for 58 % of the nights spent in Croatian tourist accommodation establishments during the year 2012. While July and August are also the two peak months at EU level, only 33 % of the nights spent in the EU during 2012 were recorded in these months. The winter months from November to March had a share of nearly 25 % of European guest nights in 2012, while for Croatia the same five months period was far less significant at 3.7 % of the annual total.

Accommodation infrastructure is heavily concentrated on coastal areas

In 2012, the number of available bed places in Croatian tourist accommodation establishments was just under 800 000 (or around 2.7 % of the bed places in the European Union), of which 20 % in hotels and similar accommodation, 52 % in holiday and other short stay accommodation and 28 % on camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks (see Table 2). With the adoption of Regulation 692/2011 concerning European statistics on tourism, accommodation data is also available broken down by type of locality – according to degree of urbanisation and to the coastal or non-coastal location – and broken down by size class of the establishments (the latter only for hotels and similar accommodation). In 2012, only a small share of bed places in Croatia was located in densely-populated areas (see Figure 5). From a topographic point of view, the vast majority of bed places, 95 %, was located in coastal areas – i.e. in municipalities bordering the sea or having more than half of their territory within 10km from the coastline (see Figure 6). This strong focus on – more climate dependent – coastal tourism can partially explain the high degree of seasonality observed in the Croatian tourism industries (see also Figures 2 to 4). An important share of the bed places was located in small family-run business included in holiday and other short stay accommodation. Also in the segment of hotels and similar accommodation, smaller establishments having less than 25 rooms had a dominant share of 40 % (see Figure 7). Larger hotels having 100 to 249 rooms or more than 250 rooms accounted for respectively 21 % and 8 % of the total bed place capacity.

Tourism grew slightly faster in Croatia that in the EU during the period 2000-2011

Figure 8 looks at the growth in tourism – measured as the evolution of the number of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments – over the period ranging from 2000 to 2011. In particular in the beginning of the 2000s, Croatia marked a significantly higher growth, with an average annual growth rate of 3.9 % in the years 2000 to 2005 (compared with 0.9 % for the European Union during the same years in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks). In the second half of the decade, the Croatian growth pattern was closer to the overall pattern for the EU. However, the dip due to the negative impact of the economic crisis extended until 2010 in Croatia, while recovery started already in 2009 at the level of the EU. In 2011, Croatian tourist accommodation establishments recorded a growth of 6.1 % in the number of nights spent, compared with a growth of 3.4 % for the same indicator for the EU as a whole.

Croatian tourism is mainly focused on foreign markets in other EU countries

In 2012, over 62 million guest nights were recorded in Croatian tourist accommodation establishments (see Table 3). Putting the guest nights in perspective with the number of inhabitants of a country, gives the tourism intensity (guest nights per inhabitant of the country). For Croatia, this ratio was relatively high at 14.1 (EU-28: 5.0). Only the island Member States of Malta (18.8) and Cyprus (16.9) and the neighbouring country Montenegro (14.7) recorded a higher tourism intensity (see Figure 9). Figure 10 shows that, in 2012, Croatia was an attractive destination for foreigners. Non-residents accounted for 92 % of the nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments, while on average for all Member States of the EU less than half of the tourism nights are spent by non-residents (44 %). The majority of these non-residents originated from other EU Member States. Only 11 % of guest nights in Croatian accommodation establishments were spent by tourists from outside the EU. The top-5 generating foreign markets for Croatia were Germany (24 %), Slovenia (11 %), Austria (9 %), Czech Republic and Italy (both 8 %), see Figure 11. The choice of destinations was parallel with the distribution of the accommodation capacity, with a very small proportion of guest nights recorded in establishments located in densely-populated areas and 95 % in coastal areas (see Figures 10 and 11, also Figures 5 and 6). Only the island countries Malta and Cyprus observed a higher dominance of coastal tourism. At the level of the European Union around 44 % of all nights spent were recorded in the coastal areas of the EU. While the largest hotels (250 bed places or more) accounted for only 8 % of the establishments, they recorded more than one third (36 %) of all nights spent in hotels and similar accommodation during 2012 (see Figure 14).

Only 1 in 3 residents of Croatia made one or more long holiday trips in 2012

The previous sections looked at the Croatian tourism industry and at Croatia as a tourism destination. This section and the following ones will take a look at Croatia as a generating market by focusing on the participation of Croatian residents in tourism and the characteristics of the trips they made in 2012. Figure 15 shows the participation in tourism, measured as the share of the population (aged 15 or over) that made at least one holiday trip of four nights or more during the reference year. Two thirds of the population did not participate in tourism during the year 2012, 25 % of the Croatian residents made at least one domestic trip of four nights or more, 12 % made at least one outbound trip of four nights or more (4 % of the population made domestic as well as outbound trips in the course of 2012). In other words, many Croatians did not go on a long holiday trip in 2012 and those who did, mainly visited a destination within Croatia. This relatively low participation in tourism of 33 % (EU-28: 51.2 %) can possibly be explained by the geographical location of the country and its appealing climate during the main tourism season. A similar below EU average participation is also observed for most other Mediterranean or southern Member States, excepting Slovenia and France (see Figure 16).

The typical Croatian holiday trip was by car to a domestic destination staying in non-rented accommodation

Residents of Croatia (aged 15 or over) made 7.3 million trips for personal purpose during 2012, corresponding to nearly 40 million nights (see Table 4). 56 % of those trips were short trips of 1 to 3 nights away from home, of which three quarters were spent in Croatia. Also within the 44 % trips of 4 nights or more, domestic trips accounted for the biggest share (two thirds). The balance between short trips and long trips was comparable to the averages observed for the EU-28. However while for both Croatia and the EU-28, domestic trips were the dominant segment, outbound trips were slightly more significant for Croatia (29.8 %, as compared to 23.9 % for the EU as a whole). A majority of the outbound trips had a destination in the EU, mainly in Italy, Slovenia, Austria or Germany (see Figure 17). The age factor did not seem to play an important role in the choice of the destination or the duration of tourism trips. Domestic and outbound trips but also short and long trips were more or less equally represented in each age segment (see Figures 18 and 19), the only exception was a relatively stronger presence of long trips in the age group 65 years or over. When looking at the means of transport used to reach the destination, a majority of trips (70 %) had a motor vehicle (owned or rented) as main means of transport (see Figure 20). With a share of 17 %, buses/coaches were a popular means of transport as well. Railway transport and air transport accounted for only 5 % each, however this share of air transport was 9 % when considering only long trips of four nights or more. The breakdown of the holiday trips made by Croatian residents by type of accommodation is shown in Figure 21. Accommodation provided without charge by friends or relatives was the most common accommodation choice in 2012 (42 %), followed by hotels and similar accommodation (20 %) and owned holiday homes (18 %). More than two thirds of domestic holiday trips were spent at non-rented accommodation, for outbound trips their share was just below half of all holiday trips.

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