Zagreb airport shows great promise

Zagreb airport reached a new record in passenger numbers in 2017 – now 2018 looks to reach a new high and more construction is underway

The growing tourist sector in Croatia, puts pressure on Zagreb airport who have build a new terminal which is Croatia’s largest infrastructure project in 10 years. The new terminal attracted many new airlines which also contributed to the rapid growth in passengers.

Tourism is a very big part of the Croatian economy, accounting for 18% of the GDP and the strategy is to keep that number growing as more and more travellers have noticed Croatia as a great holiday destination.

The Croatian tourism counsel and their promotional efforts are now focused on the cities inland, as the cities along the coast already have experienced a massive growth of tourists. The focus is now on cities like Zagreb with specific focus on the culture, architecture, food and sightseeing – the advantage with inland destinations is the fact that they can be year-round destinations where as the destinations on the coast are highly seasonal.

The next project in Zagreb Airport is the construction of a new 4-starred airport hotel with start in 2019. The hotel is a business and conference hotel with 249 rooms in total and is planned to open in late 2020.

The airport hotel is part of a larger plan to create “Zagreb Airport City” which is supposed to be a large business area around the airport.

The latest numbers also show that expectations are being met – Zagreb had its busiest October ever with 318,074 passengers – an increase of 6,9% compared to 2017.

From January to October of 2018, Zagreb airport handled 2,887,370 passengers – 8,4% more than last year. The goal for 2018 is 3.4 million passenger – a number that is not far away.