September the 9th, 2021 - Numbers for Kvarner in August 2021 are impressive, as the rest of 2021's tourist season across the country has been. They're close to reaching the figures we saw in record, pre-pandemic 2019.

As Novac/Barbara Ban writes, the beginning of September brought with it some great news for Kvarner. According to the official data of the eVisitor system, more than 5.5 million overnight stays were realised in Kvarner in August 2021, which is 90 percent of the overnight stays registered from the record 2019! As such, in August 2021 in Kvarner, there were 35 percent more overnight stays realised when compared to the same month last year.

Since the beginning of the year, tourist overnight stays have reached 77 percent of the overnight stays registered from back in 2019, meaning that when compared to overnight stays realised from the same period in 2020, 29 percent more have been achieved.

"Since the beginning of this year, Kvarner has been at the very top of Croatia in terms of tourist results. Information from the field and the state of booking for both during July and August gave a hint that the numbers were set to be above all expectations. Thanks to joint efforts, we managed to preserve a good epidemiological picture in the region and this year the main season is lasting for longer, and the whole tourism sector was more than ready for this situation.

If we look at the tourist results of July and August together, we can see how successful the main part of this year's tourist year was - in those two months, slightly more than 10 million overnight stays were realised, which is 87 percent of the amount of overnight stays when compared to July and August 2019, meaning 28 percent more overnight stays compared to July and August 2020.

With a lot of effort and conscientiousness from all of Kvarner's tourism and healthcare professionals, we've preserved a stable and favourable picture of health for our population and guests, which is a great success since a very large number of people holidayed in Kvarner's destinations and moved around Kvarner. Although our county is one of the best vaccinated counties in Croatia, the Teaching Institute for Public Health of Primorje-Gorski kotar County is still conducting their vaccination campaign because even greater vaccination in the future will mean milder measures,'' said Dr. Irena Persic Zivadinov, the director of the Kvarner Tourist Board.

The most numerous guests in August 2021 in Kvarner were guests from Germany (almost two million), Croatia (800 thousand), then Slovenia (slightly more than 700 thousand) and Austria (420 thousand). At the same time, it is certainly important to emphasise that certain markets during August achieved a higher number of overnight stays than those from the record 2019:

• Guests from Germany realised 33 percent more overnight stays compared to 2019 and 62 percent more compared to 2020;

• Guests from the Czech Republic realized 11 percent more overnight stays compared to 2019 and 25 percent more compared to 2020;

• Guests from Switzerland realised 14 percent more overnight stays compared to 2019 and 45 percent more than in 2020;

• Guests from Serbia realised 8 percent more overnight stays compared to 2019 and 50 percent more compared to 2020;

• Guests from Poland realised almost the same number of overnight stays compared to 2019 and 2020.

When we talk about foreign guests, the good news is that in Kvarner in August 2021, guests from neighbouring Italy returned in greater numbers than were present there last year.

As such, during August, they realised 48 percent more overnight stays than they did back in 2020. Italy was one of the countries that was hit hard and extremely seriously by the coronavirus pandemic when we talk about the number of seriously unwell patients and the state of the economy. Unlike our other important and close markets, Italy as a Mediterranean country has access to the sea and a really large number of coastal cities and destinations.

Like many other countries, the Italian Government has worked hard to encourage its residents to spend their holidays in their own country to boost the economy. Namely, Italian tourism is also continuing to suffer losses because Italy as a destination hasn't managed to record a large number of foreign guests in 2021.

For more on Kvarner tourism, make sure to check out our dedicated travel section.