June 10 (SeeNews) - Foreign tourist arrivals to Croatia reached 98,000 in April, an increase of 97,000 arrivals compared to April last year, when accomodation demand slumped due to the coronavirus outbreak, the statistical office said on Thursday.
Foreign tourists spent 396,000 overnights in Croatia in April, an increase of 370,000 overnights on annual level, the statistical office said in a statement on Thursday
However, compared to the pre-pandemic levels of April 2019, foreign tourists arrivals were 89.5% lower and overnights plunged 84.7% in April 2021.
The number of domestic tourists reached 121,000 in April, up by 120,000 compared with April 2020, while the number of overnights by domestic tourists rose to 272,000, up by 264,000. Compared to April 2019, domestic tourist arrivals dropped 29.6% and overnights were 30.6% lower in April of this year.
“The significantly higher number of tourist arrivals and nights in April 2021 compared to April 2020 is the result of a large drop in accommodation demand in April 2020, when travel restriction measures, border closures, quarantine regulations and epidemiological measures were introduced in Croatia and the world to prevent the spread of the coronavirus infection,” the statistical office said.
Germans accounted to the highest number of the overnights spent by foreign tourists, 25.7% of the total, followed by visitors from Slovenia (21.5%), Czech Republic (5.7%), Austria (5.1%) and U.S. (5.0%).
In 2020, foreign tourist arrivals to the Adriatic country dropped 68% year-on-year to 5.55 million, due to the coronavirus crisis.
Tourism is a key industry for the Croatian economy, contributing a fifth of the country's GDP.