October 11 (SeeNews) - A total of 15 foreign cruise ships made 85 visits to Croatian seaports in the first eight months of 2021, up from nine vessels that made 21 journeys in the same period last year but far below the pre-pandemic numbers of 2019, the country's statistical office said.
There were 86,000 passengers on board the cruise ships that visited Croatia in January-August 2021, up from less than 4,000 in the same period of last year, when due to the COVID-19 pandemic stricter epidemiological measures were introduced to limit the number of passengers on those vessels," the statistical office said in a monthly report last week.
Compared to the first eight months of 2019, the number of journeys of foreign vessels on cruise to Croatia was 81.8% lower in January-August 2021, the total number of sojourns by 74.5% and the number of passengers on board those vessels by 88.3%.
In the first eight months of 2021, foreign cruise ships visited the port of Dubrovnik 70 times, Split followed with 40 visits, Korcula with 26, Hvar with 24, and Sibenik with 22 visits.
Tourism is a key industry for the Croatian economy, contributing a fifth of the country's GDP.