Citing initial data from the eVisitor tourist registration system, the ministry said that foreign visitors generated nearly 72 million overnight stays.
With 23.5 million overnight stays, Istria County topped the ranking among the coastal counties, ahead of Split-Dalmatia County with 15.5 million overnight stays, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County with 15.3 million, 12.7 million in Zadar County, nearly 6 million in Šibenik-Knin County, and 5.4 million overnight stays in Dubrovnik-Neretva County.
The most popular destination was Zagreb, with 638,000 visitors, followed by Rovinj, Dubrovnik and Split, each of which attracted slightly over 500,000 tourists.
Most of the tourists came from Germany, nearly 3 million, or 84% more than in 2020. Domestic tourists ranked second at 2.3 million, or 41% more than in the previous year.
Croatia also attracted 1.2 million Slovenes (+18%), 1.1 million Austrians (+180%), 1 million Poles (+50%) and 775,000 Czechs (+50%). The number of Italian tourists rose by 78%, that of Hungarians by 100%, French tourists by 168% and Dutch tourists by as many as 324%.
Compared with 2019, Poles generated 8% more overnight stays, Germans generated roughly the same number, while Czech tourists generated 3% fewer overnight stays and Slovenians and Austrians around 18% fewer overnight stays.
Broken down by type of accommodation, 32.1 million overnight stays were made in rented accommodation (+45%), 17.4 million in campsites (+92%), 15.7 million in hotels (+124%) and 3.1 million in the yacht charter segment (+87%).
Croatian Tourism Board Director Kristjan Staničić said that despite all the challenges Croatia had achieved the best tourism result in the Mediterranean and was entering 2022 with great optimism. Croatia plans to realise 90% of the turnover generated in the record-breaking 2019 and further position itself as a sustainable and safe destination, he said, noting that the good trends are also confirmed by financial indicators.