March the 12th, 2025 – The Croatian tourism year for 2024 has ranked in ninth place on a European Union (EU) list.

Croatia was recently declared the best country to visit in Europe in 2025 by the millions of voters on the European Best Destinations portal. That’s the same portal that spotlighted the amazing Advent in Zagreb event and saw it take home the crown of Best Christmas Market for three consecutive years. The relatively overlooked Croatian capital outshone the winter tourism kinds of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, seeing it find its place on the Croatian tourism map outside of Dalmatia and Istria’s extra long shadow.

It’s safe to say that Croatian tourism has spread inwards, finally leaving the confines of the dazzling but overplayed coastline and islands, and giving a bit of the limelight to continental destinations. Even the chronically forgotten eastern swathes of the country are now finally being given the credit they deserve. In short, Croatian tourism continues to shine on the map of Europe.

An EU list gives us an insight on just how well it is doing, however, outside of the bubble we’re so used to. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, tourists in EU Member States recorded just over 3 billion overnight stays in 2024, which is 2.2% or 65.4 million more than in 2023. International tourists and growth in the last quarter contributed the most to these eye watering figures, according to recently released Eurostat data.

The Croatian tourism year for 2024 has ranked 9th among the EU Member States with more than 108 million overnight stays realised. Eurostat has commented that 2024 was a record or “best tourist year for the EU” in terms of overnight stays in tourist accommodation facilities. That was contributed to by an increase in overnight stays of almost 5 percent by international tourists, while domestic overnight stays only fell slightly, by 0.1 percent.

Almost 62% of overnight stays were recorded in four countries, which are among the strongest tourist powers in the world. You probably guessed it, first place was taken by Spain, which ranked in first place with 500 million overnight stays. Then came neighbouring Italy with 458 million, France with 451 million and Germany with 441 million overnight stays achieved.

According to this Eurostat data, the Croatian tourism year for 2024 came in an impressive ninth place, while the up and coming Poland came just slightly ahead of it with a similar number of overnight stays. Portugal lies behind both nations. When comparing overnight stays in 2024 with 2023, the largest increase was achieved by the tiny island of Malta, 14.4%, and fewer overnight stays were recorded in only four EU countries.
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