ZAGREB (Croatia), October 2 (SeeNews) - Croatia's revenue from tourist services increased 11.6% year-on-year to 2.7 billion euro ($3.2 billion) in the first half of 2017, the tourism ministry said on Monday.

In the second quarter alone, Croatia's tourism revenue totalled 2.3 billion euro, up 13.4% on the year, the ministry said in a statement.

The share of travel-tourism in the country's total GDP, at current prices, was 12% in the first half of 2017, representing a growth of 0.7 percentage points over the same period of 2016, the ministry noted.

The share of travel-tourism in the GDP in the second quarter was 19.5%, which was 1.4 percentage points higher than in the prior-year period.

International visitors accounted for 15.3 million tourist arrivals in the first nine months of 2017, up 14% on the year, and 86.2 million overnight stays, an increase of 12%. Domestic tourists recorded an 8% growth in the number of visits and a rise of 13% in the number of overnights.

In the period from January to September, most overnights were recorded in Istria (26.7 million), Split-Dalmatia County (18.3 million) and Kvarner (17.9 million).

By the end of the year, Croatia expects to register some 100 million overnight stays.

($=0.850627 euro)