Marko Perić, Dean of the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management in Rijeka, warns that tourism has been heading in the wrong direction for years and that government measures will not bring a quick turnaround.
Croatian tourism has been recording low growth rates in traffic for years, alongside an increase in accommodation capacity, which has resulted in a real decline in revenue. According to Marko Perić, PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management at the University of Rijeka, the real decline in revenue over the past three years was 7.2 percent, while in 2025, compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the decline ranged between 15 and 20 percent.
The only university institution in Croatia fully dedicated to tourism and hospitality is the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, which has been training experts in these fields for over 60 years. Since 2007, Perić has advanced from assistant to dean, and this year he began his second term. In an interview with Lider, he analyzed the state of Croatian tourism and the announced legislative changes.
"That Croatian tourism was heading in an undesirable direction was clear more than ten years ago," Perić stated for Lider. "Instead of increasing hotel accommodation capacities and reducing the share of private accommodation, as suggested by the tourism development strategy in force at the time, the opposite happened."
As a result, Croatia further solidified its position as a seasonal destination, with more than 90 percent of capacity and traffic concentrated in coastal Croatia. During the summer months, this puts enormous pressure on infrastructure. The pandemic, logistical problems caused by the global security situation, and the adoption of the euro further drove up prices, especially for food, beverages, and services.
Perić emphasizes that in most cases, service quality did not keep pace with rising prices, undermining price competitiveness compared to other countries. The Croatian government is now attempting, through a new legal framework, to regulate destination planning and management and to bring order to the short-term rental market, which is recognized as the biggest problem, "although to a large extent it is not," adds the dean.
However, he warns that government measures will not bring a quick turnaround. "Even the implementation periods for these government measures, sometimes ranging from five to ten years, indicate that there will be no sudden reversal," said Perić.
As one of Croatia's leading experts in strategic tourism management, tourist destination management, and sports tourism development, Perić believes that Croatia needs two different approaches to tourism development. "You cannot put Opatija, Krk, Split, or Dubrovnik in the same basket as Slavonia, Gorski Kotar, or Lika," he pointed out.
A large part of the coast and islands is already at the upper limit of its carrying capacity, and here the focus should be on developmental progress and quality improvement. On the other hand, the continental part of the country still has room for additional growth and development of the tourism offer.
