Last year, 13,675 enterprises with 79,349 employees operated in the Croatian hospitality and tourism sector, generating HRK 41.1bn in revenue and HRK 4.2bn in net profit, which is a considerable increase compared with HRK 1.8bn in 2021, but wages were below the average, the Financial Agency (Fina) reports.

Fina released the data on Wednesday on the occasion of World Tourism Day, noting that total revenue in the accommodation and food service sector rose by 44.3% in 2022 compared with 2021, while expenditure increased by 37.6% to HRK 36.4bn.

The average net monthly wage paid in this sector was HRK 6,106, an increase of 17.5% on 2021. However, it was 12.4% lower than the national average of HRK 6,973.

Fina’s report says that the largest number of tourism and hospitality enterprises operated in the City of Zagreb, over 3,200 of them with nearly 19,000 employees. It was followed by Split-Dalmatia County with 2,200 enterprises, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County with 1,400, and Istria County with 1,300 enterprises.

Among the counties, tourism and hospitality enterprises in Istria County generated the largest amount of revenue – HRK 9.6bn, or 23.4% of the sector’s total revenue in 2022.

The top three enterprises with the highest revenues in 2022 were Valamar Riviera (HRK 2.5bn), Plava Laguna (HRK 1.7bn) and Maistra (HRK 1.5bn).