The island of Vir currently occupies the seventh position among the most visited destinations in Croatia with 2,633,207 overnight stays by domestic and foreign guests. Ahead of it are Rovinj with 4,426,341 overnight stays, Dubrovnik with 4,194,847, Poreč with 3,588,843, Split with 3,110,376, Umag with 2,916,332 and Medulin with 2,796,467 overnight stays.
Behind Vir follow Zadar with 2,442,623 overnight stays, Zagreb with 2,330,372 and Mali Lošinj with 2,238,693 overnight stays. Based on the current trajectory of the season, it is assumed that Vir will reach approximately 2.7 million overnight stays by the end of 2026, but in the ranking of the top ten destinations, it will most likely drop to the eighth place after Zagreb completes its Advent event.
Zagreb had more than 433,000 overnight stays in November and December last year, and with similar figures this year, it would be on the verge of reaching a round 2.8 million overnight stays, whereas last year it recorded 2,770,621 overnight stays. Vir cannot achieve those figures this year, and it is most likely unable to threaten the record result from 2023, when the island achieved 2,715,592 overnight stays. The current 159,586 arrivals of domestic and foreign guests also cannot threaten the record 163,045 from 2023.
Despite this, this year will be written as better than last year's and the second-best tourism year in history. Vir records 5.81 per cent better overnight stay results than last year and 5.79 per cent better results in the category of tourist arrivals. Domestic guests had a 50.6 per cent share of the total number of overnight stays, while foreign guests accounted for 49.4 per cent.
Among foreign tourists, Slovenians achieved the highest number of overnight stays, with 332,882 from the beginning of the year to the end of October, representing an increase of 8.21 per cent. They are followed by Germans with 233,966 overnight stays and an increase of 2.70 per cent, Hungarians with 203,209 overnight stays and an increase of 1.44 per cent, Czechs with 139,989 overnight stays and an increase of 11.1 per cent, and Slovaks, who as the fifth-placed had an almost identical result to last year with 136,677 overnight stays. This is the top five Vir source markets whose tourists achieved at least 100,000 overnight stays.
In arrivals, foreign tourists dominated, with their share of the total figures rising to 74.8 per cent, while Croats had a 25.2 per cent share. Hungarians are this year's champions with an unattainable figure of 26,826 arrivals and an increase of 3.13 per cent. Slovenians follow with 17,361 tourist arrivals and an increase of 4.83 per cent, Germans have 15,832 arrivals with an increase of 1 per cent, Slovaks have 15,056 arrivals with a decrease of 0.2 per cent, and Czechs have 14,666 arrivals with an increase of 13.5 per cent.
Czechs have done the best business on the island of Vir in the current part of the season as the only foreign tourists with large figures and double-digit growth in overnight stays of 11.1 per cent and arrivals of 13.5 per cent. Croats, meanwhile, grew by 10.9 per cent in arrivals and 6.57 per cent in overnight stays.
