Croatian travel agents brought in more foreign tourists in 2010 than in 2009

Newly released statistics show that 5.4% more foreign tourists came to Croatia via the country’s tour operators in 2010 than in the previous year, amounting to about 100,000 more foreign holidaymakers – with 1.83 million tourists booking through Croatian travel agents in total. These holidaymakers stayed in the country for 12.6 million nights, which is about 1 million nights – or 9.3% more – than in 2009.

As 9.11 million foreign tourists visited Croatia during 2010, the above figures mean that Croatian travel agents brought in about 20.1% of all foreign holidaymakers. Likewise, the number of nights stayed by foreign tourists totaled 51 million, which means that these travel agents accounted for 25% of such bookings.

On average, tourists booking through Croatian travel agencies stayed for seven nights in total. German tourists stayed for the most nights booked through travel agencies – 25.4% of the total – followed by those from Italy (9.2%); Poland (7.4%); Czech Republic (7%); Slovenia (6.3%); Great Britain (5.2%); France (5%) and Russia (5%).

Croatian travel agents also reported an increase in the number of bookings made by domestic tourists (up 8.5%), in contrast to overall figures of domestic tourism in Croatia, which reveal a fall in the number of these tourists holidaying in 2010 compared to 2009.

Meanwhile, these agencies also reveal that more Croatian tourists travelled abroad during 2010 than compared to the previous year – 4.6% more travelled abroad, staying for 6.1% more nights. The most popular countries for Croatian tourists – booking through domestic agencies – were Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, France and Tunisia – and on average, these tourists stayed for 5 nights.

Overall, therefore, these statistics show that Croatian tour operators performed much better in 2010 to 2009, but are still down on the bookings taken in all sectors in 2008. 899 agencies operated in Croatia in 2010, 25 less than the previous year.

Source: Vjesnik