Investment and innovative solutions are the future of tourism

Celebration of the World Tourism Day

The World Tourism Day is celebrated worldwide on 27 September, and this time of year is chosen symbolically as the time when in the northern hemisphere the main tourist season ends and in the south hemisphere it begins. Given that this day has a long tradition of marking, for more than forty years, the themes elaborated so far have been truly diverse, and this year it is “Tourism and Green Investments”.

The World Tourism Organisation points out that investment is one of the key priorities for the post-pandemic recovery of tourism, and it is also important for future growth and development, which needs to be achieved through innovative solutions, at the same time taking care, of course, of the preservation of the environment and of sustainability.

On the occasion of the World Tourism Day, we present an overview of tourist indicators, and what can be concluded from the data right away is that tourist arrivals and nights have been steadily increasing in the past decade, with the exception of the pandemic year 2020. According to the latest available annual data, the year 2022, when 90.0 million tourist nights were recorded, almost reached figures of the pre-pandemic 2019, but the number of arrivals remained somewhat lower than at that time.


The number of accommodation capacities is growing year after year, and in 2022, in Croatia, there were 415 thousand rooms, apartments and camping grounds available to tourists, which was 34.3 % higher than in 2013, the year of Croatia’s accession to the European Union.


Surprisingly, if we compare the year of Croatia’s accession to the European Union with the data for 2022, we see that in both years the most loyal guests were Germans, who, among foreign tourists, realised the most nights, followed by Slovenians and Austrians.


If we look at the average number of tourist nights per arrival, the order is slightly different. In 2022, Germans ranked first, with an average of 7.2 tourist nights per arrival, followed by Czechs, with 6.6 nights, and Slovaks, with 6.4 nights per arrival. As for 2013, the highest average number of tourist nights was realised by the Russians, 8.1 nights per arrival, followed by the Danes, with 7.7 nights, and Germans, only in the third place, with 7.5 nights per arrival.

Tourists prefer to come to Croatia in their own arrangement, as shown by data for 2022, when almost three quarters of tourists, namely 71.1%, came individually, while 28.9% of them came in an organised way.

Concerning accommodation, tourists traditionally stay the most in rooms, apartments, studio apartments and summer houses, where 49.1% of tourist nights were realised in 2022, followed by camps, which were in the second place with 23.2%, and hotels, which were in the third place with 20.3% of the total number of nights realised.

Croatia, a small country for a great holiday, as was once the tourist slogan, has very much to offer to its tourists, so it is no wonder that the figures are growing year after year. It is already well known that the Croatian economy rests on this economic branch, and if we want competitive and sustainable tourism, it will be necessary to respect the recommendations of the World Tourism Organisation in the business and to increasingly apply innovative solutions aimed at preserving the environment and caring for people in the future.

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