Croatia recorded 30.7 million tourist bed nights in August 2021, or 46 percent up from August 2020. This is only 7 percent down from August 2019, state agency Hina reported on Wednesday carrying a press release by the Ministry of Tourism.

A total of 4.3 million tourists visited Croatia in August 2021, which is an increase of 59 percent from the same month in 2020, and 14 percent down compared to August 2019. Foreign tourists generated 26.7 million bed nights and domestic tourists 4 million.

By region, the highest number of bed nights (8.6 million) was registered in Istria County, ahead of Split-Dalmatia County (5.8 million), Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (5.7 million), Zadar County (4.8 million), Sibenik-Knin County (2.8 million) and Dubrovnik-Neretva County (1.9 million). All six are on Croatia’s Adriatic coast.

The most popular towns were Dubrovnik (164,000 tourist arrivals), Split (160,000), Rovinj (149,000), Medulin and Porec (each with 125,000 bed nights recorded).

By country of origin, the most numerous foreign tourists were German (1.1 million), followed by Poles (338,000), Austrians (317,000), Czechs (250,000), Slovenians (239,000) and Italians (205,000).

Over the first eight months of 2020, some 10.7 million tourists visited Croatia, generating 67.9 million bed nights, which is 56 percent more arrivals and 43 percent more bed nights than in the same period of last year.

“The tourist year continues, as indicated by the fact that about 680,000 tourists are currently staying in Croatia, the same number as at this time in 2019. This is an excellent indicator for September as we want to continue at the same pace to further boost the economy and ensure an even better starting position for the tourism industry for next year,” Minister Nikolina Brnjac said for her ministry’s press release.

The sector was also seeing excellent financial results as the value of retail receipts in August was 21 percent higher from August last year. Over the first eight months of 2020 they reached nearly 18 billion kuna, (€2.4 billion) or about 16 percent down from the same period of 2019.

(€1 = 7.49 kuna)