The tourist season so far, according to figures, is the best one yet and August alone recorded a 10% increase in arrivals and 4.5% increase in overnights, Croatian Tourism Minister Darko Lorencin told a news conference on Monday, presenting the results of this year's tourist season.
He stressed that in the first eight months of this year, the number of tourist arrivals was up 5.4% and the number of overnights increased by 3.3%.
Lorencin added that the ministry stood by its forecast that this tourist season could yield similar results as last year's season and the overall income could go up between two and three per cent.
Anything above that would represent an exceptional success, Lorencin said, adding that it would take another two or three seasons to achieve the record high results of EUR 7.5 million from 2008. The minister stressed that new investments were necessary in order to achieve the planned results of EUR 14 billion for 2020.
Zagreb recorded the highest rise in arrivals (15%) and overnights (12.4%).
The number of foreign tourists was up 6% and they recorded 4% more overnights. The most numerous were tourists from Germany, followed by those from Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Britain, Slovakia, Hungary and France.
The number of tourists from Russia was down 13 percent as a result of the new visa regime after Croatia's EU entry on 1 July.
