Home grown tourists on the rise

Around 56% of Croatians plan to spend their summer holidays in Croatia this year, and 52% of them will stay in their own houses or apartments or with their friends, while 40% will pay for accommodation, the MasterCard company said while presenting results of the latest survey MasterIndex Croatia 2015 this past Friday.The survey, covering 1,000 users of banking services aged 18-55 and conducted in May this year, shows that the share of Croatians who plan to spend their summer holidays in Croatia has grown from 51% in 2014 to 56%.Croatians use their bank cards while on holiday mostly to pay for petrol (68%) and for clothing and footwear and consumer goods (62% and 61%).As for accommodation, 60% of the respondents prefer paying for it with cash, with instalment payment becoming increasingly popular in transactions involving credit and charge cards.The survey shows that Croatians use bank cards for 38% of all payment transactions while on holiday, the same percentage as in May 2014.The use of bank cards during the holiday increases with the respondent's age, education and salary amount.Croatians prefer paying with cash also when travelling abroad, while they mostly use bank cards to pay for plane tickets (31%).The survey shows that Croatians travel for leisure two times more frequently than they do for business purposes. Two-thirds of the respondents said they travel mostly within the country (for business and leisure purposes), while travel outside the euro area is not that frequent (14%).The survey also shows that as many as 43% of the respondents do not keep track of how much they spend.HINA