Croatia’s tourism industry is booming, according to new government data indicating a strong first six months of 2025 but the figures come amid concerns over rising prices in the southern European destination.
Minister of Tourism and Sport, Tonči Glavina, told the Poslovni svijet s Ilijom Jandrićem podcast that June arrivals were up 11% year-on-year, yielding 19% more overnight stays and with part of the month seeing 25% growth, describing it as a “fantastic” month.
The news comes after a rumoured softening at the end of the first quarter due to a 20% drop in arrivals in March. Glavina emphasised that April then saw +20%, in a similar pattern to June compensating for May’s lower results.
Referring to this as the “pre-season”, he said it’s important to take the figures for the quarter as a whole. “You cannot judge the pre-season month by month,” he said. “As a whole, we are currently up four percent in arrivals and five percent in overnight stays compared to last year.”
But reports are multiplying that rising costs are affecting both tourists and locals. Scrutiny of the cost of essential goods enabled by government-mandated transparency on retail pricing has revealed huge discrepancies in the cost of everyday goods across the country.
Analysis has shown a whopping 10.38% increase in Tribunj, a waterfront village in southern Croatia, where toilet paper is 19.1% more expensive than in Zagreb. What’s more, Tribunj is not an outlier but is joined by a number of other towns with the cost of living up around 10% too, including Posedarje, Pakoštane and Pomer (10%), and Pašman (9.96%), according to RTL Direkt.
Visitors might want to be aware that food groceries have not seen the same spike in prices. Instead it is household and hygiene products that are going through the roof. While this might be good news for tourists in-the-know who can avoid the highest prices by perhaps bringing a roll of toilet paper or sanitary products with them in their luggage, for locals it is a different story.
“These are basic items people must buy, especially in tourist apartments, and that drives prices even higher,” economist Mladen Vedriš told the Daily Express.
Acknowledging the issue, Glavina noted that while the Croatian market has become more expensive, it still represents good value and that off-peak months are the best time to avoid seasonal inflation. He also directed attention at legislation to safeguard housing and avoid overexploitation that has slashed the number of short-term rental developments by over 70% “We want to protect our most valuable resource – the coast,” he insisted.
