October the 19th, 2025 – Year on year, Istrian tourism has been recording better and better results, and 2025 appears to be no different.
As Slobodna Dalmacija/Ivica Nevescanin writes, in spite of a multitude of unfortunate internal structural challenges, this was an exceptionally successful tourist year, claims Denis Ivošević, director of the Istria County Tourist Board. The results of the Istrian tourism season for 2025 and the direction and challenges facing the country’s most successful tourist region were also discussed.
istrian tourism has had a fantastic 2025 so far
“Istria has long stopped focusing on breaking records during the summer months of July and August, but rather on expanding arrivals and overnight stays across all destinations throughout the year. Now, we can clearly and measurably distinguish the winter months with their audiences, and also do the same with the pre-season and the post-season in Istria,” emphasised Ivošević.
The results of overnight stays for Istrian tourism in 2025 looked at on a month by month basis demonstrate this. April surpassed one million overnight stays across Istria for the very first time (a whole 20 percent more than last year), June surpassed five million overnight stays for the first time (a plus of 29 percent), and September almost reached four million overnight stays (9 percent more).
The year will end with just over five million arrivals recorded in Istria (a plus of 3 percent) and just over 30 million overnight stays (a plus of 2 percent).
“When we look at these results a little closer, the entire difference in overnight stays in the plus was generated during the pre- and post-season. For Istrian tourism, 2025 will be another record year, but the most pleasing thing of all is the fact that all the goals set out in our Master Plan for the Development of Istrian Tourism are being credibly met,” underlined an understandably proud Ivošević.
These impressive and truly record numbers and goals met were achieved despite one of the most challenging seasons in the post-pandemic period. The combination of negative international and domestic political and economic circumstances has presented the tourism industry with a wide range of challenges, the potentially negative effects of which should have been predicted in time, with adequate responses found for them.
a challenging year
“2025 was an extremely demanding tourism year. While a decade or more ago we always said that we had three to four challenges that we’d have to deal with, recently there have been more and more of them and we’ve had less and less influence over them. Given the number of challenges faced, we can classify them into three to four categories: international order, or political crises; the financial situation across the world, especially by region; the state of the international tourism market, especially in Croatia’s most important source markets; and internal structural problems. So, over more recent years, we’ve been talking about more than twenty challenges, and when they multiply over the years, they become truly large and complex problems,” summarised Ivošević.
“If we look at this year alone, then the main challenges were: the crisis in Ukraine that is only worsening, the crisis in the Middle East with almost a dozen countries involved to some degree or another in the conflict, the impact of these wars on supply chains, inflationary pressures and recessionary trends in Croatia’s most important source destinations, the effects of climate change that we’re increasingly feeling in this area, pressure on the Adriatic Sea, a whole set of issues related to the structural problems of the Croatian economy and the general understanding of the importance of tourism for Croatia, all the way to those issues that are exclusively related to the preparation, organisation and implementation for the main part of the tourist year.
We in tourism are used to challenges because every year is a project in itself. With a bit of good organisation, a protocol of cooperation between the private and public sectors, constant monitoring on a weekly basis is definitely a recipe for success. The results show that the challenges have been successfully overcome, which is best seen in the data for Istria’s tourist flagships,” he stated.
He also noted that the achieved physical indicators in the category of Istria’s destinations have been stable for years now, and that there have been no significant changes.
great numbers across istria for 2025
The best results to date have been achieved by: Rovinj 4.2 million (a 4 percent increase), Poreč 3.4 million (an increase of 3 percent), Umag 2.9 million (minus 1 percent), Medulin 2.8 million (at the same level as last year), Pula 2.2 million (at the same level as last year), Funtana 2.1 million (a 4 percent increase), followed by Tar-Vabriga, Vrsar, Novigrad and Labin, all of which have positive indices.
Subscribe to our newsletter
the fields marked with * are required
