Croatia among most popular EU destinations for online accommodation booking

In the first nine months of 2023, guests spent more than 546.2 million nights in EU short-term rental accommodation booked via online platforms, up 12% on the year, per Eurostat data, which show that Croatia is among the most popular destinations for such bookings.

Those nights also exceeded pre-pandemic levels, increasing by 29% in comparison with the first nine months of 2019, Eurostat says, adding that the increase is also a result of excellent tourist results in the third quarter of last year.

In July, August and September 2023, 56.6% of all nights in the first nine months of the year were registered in short-term rental accommodation booked via online platforms (Airbnb, Booking, Expedia or TripAdvisor), or 309.4 million, which was 13.4% more than in the third quarter of 2022.

In July 2023, 115.7 million nights were spent in accommodation booked via online platforms, an increase of 10.7% compared with July 2022. In August, this number increased to 124.7 million nights (+11.7% compared to August 2022) and in September, that number was 69.1 million (+21.6% compared with September 2022).

With almost 25 million nights in accommodation booked via online platforms in Q3 2023, Croatia ranked fourth in the EU. This was an increase of 9% from Q3 2022.

France ranked first with 65.4 million nights (+7.4%), Spain was second with 56 million (+12.7%) and Italy was third with 48 million (+16%).

Eurostat notes that the third quarter is the most important in the year for tourism in most European countries.

Short term online bookings and the rential of real estate exploited for tourism is increasingly being mentioned as one of the reasons for the rise in property prices, which is why the residents of many European cities find it very hard to find a house or flat.

In Q3 2023, house prices in Croatia increased 10.9% on the year, which was the highest rise in the EU.

European cities and governments are trying to weaken the impact of short term rental on house prices with various taxes and regulations, mainly restricting the duration of such rentals.

Croatian Finance Minister Marko Primorac said recently the government was "not afraid" of introducing property tax and that it raised the upper limit of the holiday house tax to €5 per square metre.

(Hina/FaH)

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