"The results for the first half of April are excellent and we believe they will continue in the rest of the month. These high figures show that Croatia also has something to offer outside the peak summer season and is becoming recognised as a year-round destination," Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli said.
Cappelli said that the number of tourist nights had gone up by about 50% in April before the Easter holidays compared with the first half of April last year. He said he believed that the good results would continue over the next two months before the summer season.
Figures from the eVisitor and eCrew tourist information systems show that the largest number of tourist nights was generated in Istria (134,000), followed by Kvarner (70,000), Dubrovnik-Neretva County (57,000), Split-Dalmatia County (47,000), Zadar County (23,000) and Zagreb (20,000).
The largest number of bed nights was generated by tourists from Germany (90,000), Italy and Austria (both 41,000), France (16,000) and Slovenia (15,000). Croatian tourists generated 46,000 bed nights.