April 4, 2022 - In 2021, there were 466.2 thousand tourists in houses, apartments, and holiday homes or non-commercial accommodation in Croatia, 2.3 percent more than in 2020, while the number of overnight stays was 9.3 percent or 10.1 million less, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

Owners of non-commercial accommodation in Croatia pay a tourist tax as a lump sum and are obliged to register themselves and all persons who spend the night in the house or apartment (family members, relatives, friends) in the eVisitor tourist check-in and check-out system of the Croatian National Tourist Board (CNTB), from which the CBS takes data on non-commercial tourist traffic and continues to process them statistically.

Locals came less and spent the night in houses and holiday apartments

According to these data, out of the total turnover in non-commercial accommodation in 2021, almost 76 percent of arrivals and 56.4 percent of overnight stays refer to foreigners, who came to this type of accommodation 5 percent more than in 2020 (353.1 thousand) but realized 3 percent fewer overnight stays (5.7 million), reports Index.hr.

Croatian citizens also realized fewer overnight stays in non-commercial accommodation than in 2020, by 16 percent (4.4 million), and according to reports in eVisitor, 5 percent fewer came to that accommodation (113.1 thousand).

Last year, 37,000 Slovenians came to this type of accommodation, totaling 2.6 million overnight stays. According to that, they were by far the most numerous and the most overnight stays in houses and holiday apartments in Croatia among all tourists from other nations who were in that type of accommodation.

They were followed by Germans and tourists from Bosnia and Herzegovina with 640 thousand and 634 thousand overnight stays, and among the first ten countries, whose tourists realized one hundred thousand and more overnight stays in that accommodation: the markets of Serbia, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Italy, and Slovakia.

Zadar County and Kvarner with the most non-commercial overnight stays

In the research on this traffic, CBS did not provide comparisons of traffic from these and other markets in non-commercial accommodation in Croatia from 2020, which is not stated for individual counties, but only data on arrivals and overnight stays for 2021. Zadar County, with 36 percent of all overnight stays in that type of accommodation, ranks in the first place.

The second is Primorje-Gorski Kotar with 26 percent of total overnight stays, while the third is Istria with 15 percent of total overnight stays in non-commercial accommodation.

They are followed by Šibenik-Knin County, where 8.2 percent of overnight stays in non-commercial accommodation were realized in holiday homes and apartments in 2021. Split-Dalmatia County follows with almost 7 percent of overnight stays, and Dubrovnik-Neretva County with 4.4 percent, while Lika-Senjska County with the lowest share of 4 percent in total overnight stays.

However, not all other counties in Croatia have that much, because the share of overnight stays in non-commercial accommodation was only 0.2 percent.

What the CBS does not yet state in this research is the number of houses, apartments, and holiday apartments (accommodation units, etc.) in which this non-commercial tourist traffic was recorded in 2021, and they note that the quality of research results is significantly affected by the discipline of check-in and check-out the stay of persons in non-commercial accommodation facilities and the work of inspection bodies that monitor this phenomenon.

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February 23, 2021 – Istrians are hoping that the upcoming season will be significantly better than last year, with holiday homes in Istria already fully booked.

As HRT reports, Istria is already ready for the tourist season, which Istrians hope will be significantly better than last year. They are most optimistic due to the proximity to the most important markets from which their guests come by car. Apart from the coast, the peninsula's interior is becoming more and more interesting for tourists.

Five hundred tourists are resting this winter in Poreč, mostly athletes. Most of them have been guests in Istria for many years.

"You have hundreds of kilometers of beautiful mountain bike trails for training, you are close to us, we do not depend on airplanes, we come quickly by car, we stay at sea, you are excellent hosts for everything we need," said Matthias Krick from Germany.

In the long-term tourist champion of Croatia, Poreč, they are ready for an excellent summer season. The announcements are great.

"It's going very well. There are bigger announcements for Easter, May 1, and later 'rush hour.' We are preparing as if the season will be great, and we strongly believe in that," says Nenad Velenik from the Tourist Board of Porec.

Phones in the tourist boards of central Istria are constantly ringing. The Istrian green oasis has never been bigger bait.

"The advantage is that the holiday homes in our county are isolated, scattered on the beautiful hills in the greenery. After the lockdown and isolation in big cities, especially in Germany where our guests come from, people wanted nature, beauty, and spending holidays with their loved ones," says Sanja Kantaruti from the Central Istria Tourist Board.

And travel agencies are also ready, just waiting for the opening of borders and transparent rules.

"We even have questions from guests about whether renters are vaccinated, what the vaccination situation is in Croatia, what the current situation is. They want to be safe, travel safely, and get home safely. We hope that all this will be resolved and that the borders will be opened, and we are ready," said Alen Babić, owner of a travel agency in Poreč.

A favorite and close destination of Germans, Austrians, Italians, and Slovenes, Istria is ready to present the tourist season well in not at all enviable circumstances, just like it did last year.

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Even local tourist boards admit that the holiday home zone is a grey area where commercial activity is suspected.

Good news for holiday homes in Croatia!