August saw a 2% rise in arrivals and a 2.3% rise in nights, the State Bureau of Statistics said on Friday.
Foreign tourists generated 8.4 million arrivals, up 3.2% from the first eight months of 2011, and 48.5 million nights, an increase of 4.2%. August saw nearly three million foreign arrivals, up 2.5% on the year, and 19.3 million foreign nights, up 3%.
Domestic tourists accounted for one million arrivals in the first eight months of 2012, down 4.5% on the year, and 4.2 million nights, down 7%. In August, Croatians accounted for 212,700 arrivals and 1.3 million nights, down 3.4% and 6% respectively.
The most numerous foreign tourists who also generated the most nights were German, Slovenian, Austrian, Italian, Czech, Polish, Dutch and Slovak. All but Slovenians, the Czech and Italians generated increases in nights.
Foreign tourists came from 64 countries.
Increases of 20 to 50% in both arrivals and nights were generated by tourists from New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Tunisia, Morocco, Ukraine, Great Britain, Estonia, and Belarus.
Interestingly, tourists from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, India, Indonesia and China generated increases in arrivals and nights ranging from 50 to over 200%.