More and more tourists are avoiding intermediaries

Tourists who arrived in Croatia in 2017 through individual organization in commercial accommodation accounted for almost 66 percent of the total 86.2 million overnight stays, and their share in the total of 17.4 million arrivals reached 64 percent.

This is shown by data from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS) on the ways tourists arrived, according to which there were a total of 11.1 million tourists who came to Croatia last year in commercial accommodation individually, in their own organization.

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This represented an increase of 17.4 percent compared to 2016, significantly higher than the 5.4 percent increase in organized arrivals of tourists to that accommodation, which were also significantly fewer than individual ones, namely 6.3 million.

This is also reflected in the overnight stay indicators, as individuals achieved a share of 66 percent in total overnight stays last year with almost 57 million overnight stays, which was also 16 percent more than in 2016, while tourists who arrived organized achieved almost half as many or 29.6 million overnight stays, which is about 2 percent more than a year earlier.

Long-standing trend

Foreign tourists had a majority in both ways of arrival, but like the total, more came individually, almost 10 million, compared to 5.7 million who arrived organized. Thus, both groups achieved increases compared to 2016, but individuals had significantly higher increases of 18.6 percent, compared to 6.2 percent more organized arrivals of foreign tourists.

The same is true for overnight stays – foreign tourists who arrived individually achieved significantly more overnight stays, 52.3 million or 16.7 percent more, while foreigners who arrived organized had 28 million overnight stays, an increase of 2.3 percent.

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Domestic tourists who traveled individually in commercial accommodation in Croatia last year numbered 1.2 million or 9 percent more, and they also achieved a 6.4 percent increase with 4.2 million overnight stays.

In contrast, the number of domestic tourists who traveled organized was 2.1 percent lower than in 2016, or about 589 thousand, and they also had a decrease of 5.2 percent with 1.7 million overnight stays.

Such trends in the way of arrival in Croatian tourism have been present for years, with more arrivals and overnight stays of tourists in individual organization than through organized programs of agencies, tour operators, clubs, and other travel organizers, but compared to the previous year, last year the share of arrivals and overnight stays of tourists who came in their own organization further increased to 64 and 66 percent of the total number.

In 2016, the arrivals and overnight stays of individuals accounted for 59 and 63 percent of the total 16 million arrivals and 78 million overnight stays.