In Dubrovnik, a city of barely 41,500 inhabitants turned into a global showcase after gaining popularity as an audiovisual filming location, local perceptions reflect the transformation of the urban environment. Some residents believe the historic center increasingly resembles an “open-air museum,” where shops and restaurants designed for visitors prevail while traditional everyday life fades. This sense of lost authenticity is compounded by inflationary pressure: in Croatia, inflation reached 4.3% in November according to the EU’s harmonised index, almost double the eurozone average.
In response, the government and local authorities have designed a package of measures combining urban regulation, visitor-flow management, and incentives for residential leasing. Among the most visible actions are limits on the number of tourist apartments in Dubrovnik’s old town and restrictions on cruise traffic: only two ships may dock per day, and a maximum of 4,000 cruise passengers are allowed within the walled city at any one time. In addition, entry to the main landmark—the historic city walls—must be reserved exclusively online in order to prevent heavy concentrations of short-stay visitors who generate little local spending.
Authorities have also promoted legal reforms at the national level. An amendment to the hospitality law approved in January 2025 clearly distinguished between commercial tourist rentals and family residential rentals, which in the peak season of that same year resulted in a net reduction of more than 2,000 private-accommodation beds compared to the previous year. At the same time, the number of long-term rental contracts rose by 11%, while 3,350 owners shifted their properties wholly or partly from the tourist market to the residential market.
The government’s strategy also seeks to redistribute demand over time by encouraging visits outside the summer peak. Each year the country receives more than 21 million tourists, a figure more than five times its total population, placing Croatia among the destinations with the highest relative tourism intensity in Europe. At the same time, the executive is trying to curb construction in overheated areas to prevent uncontrolled urban growth and to facilitate access to affordable housing for young families.
Political leadership has stressed that the sustainability of the tourism model depends as much on regulation as on the destination’s international reputation. The prime minister warned that excessive or unjustified prices can harm the country’s image and cause visitors not to return—an effect that now spreads globally at speed through social networks and digital platforms.
Despite the restrictions, tourism revenues continue to grow. In the first six months of last year, they increased by nearly 6% compared with the same period a year earlier, and over the past decade they have doubled in the first half of the year—evidence that the measures are not intended to slow the activity down, but rather to steer it toward a more balanced and profitable model. The stated goal is to prioritise quality over quantity, moving toward a less massified tourism with higher spending per visitor and a lower urban and environmental footprint.
The main challenge now lies in institutional capacity to oversee effective implementation. Authorities themselves acknowledge that success will depend on administrative coordination, the availability of reliable data, and continuous monitoring of results. Ultimately, the Croatian experiment is shaping up as a European laboratory for sustainable tourism management, whose outcome could become a reference point for other destinations facing similar pressures.
