Tourist arrivals slumped by 76.8% year on year in Croatia in March, as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic took its toll on the tourism industry worldwide, data from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS) showed. 

“This negative result is a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken against the spread of the disease caused by a new SARS-CoV-2 virus in most countries in the world,” the DZS wrote on May 8. 

Croatia’s large tourism sector is expected to suffer further due to the pandemic, with government estimates of the decline in revenues this year ranging from 60% to 90%. Recent forecasts from the government and international financial institutions project a contraction in GDP of around 9% in 2020, with the performance of the tourism sector a major contributing factor. 

In March, Croatia recorded just 104,000 tourist arrivals and 290,000 tourist nights in commercial accommodation establishments, down 69.3%. 

Domestic tourists accounted for 43,000 arrivals and 106,000 nights, drops of 67.0% y/y and 60.9% y/y respectively. There was an even steeper drop among foreign tourists: they accounted for 61,000 arrivals and 184,000 tourist nights, down 80.8% and 72.7% respectively. 

Tourists from Germany were the most numerous, with 11,000 tourist arrivals and 29,000 tourist nights, but the figures were down by 73.9% y/y and 72.3% y/y respectively. 

The DZS also released first-quarter data for the tourism sector, which showed there were 356,000 foreign tourist arrivals who spent 901,000 nights in the country, falls of 41.6% and 32.1% respectively.