Croatia’s nautical sector is more than chartering: what the “Plava knjiga” shows

The new question: what happens around the boat?

A busy marina is easy to photograph. The work behind a boat is less visible: design, equipment, maintenance, repairs and services. At the Biograd Boat Show on 22 October, the employers’ association HUP presented its “Plava knjiga hrvatske nautike”. The paper examines this wider context and links its analysis to policy demands.

The public summary gives around €2.8 billion in operating revenue and €1,019.6 million in export revenue for 2025 across the businesses covered. Employment is stated as 18,323 full-time equivalents. These are findings from an association’s analysis, not automatically a new set of government national accounts.

A dedicated register, not a single industry classification

HUP assigned more than 3,200 business entities according to their actual nautical activity. The paper distinguishes direct, supporting and related activities, dividing its economic analysis into five segments: manufacturing and development, service and refit, infrastructure, chartering and related activities. Its scope is broader than boat rental, but narrower than the entire “blue economy”.

This is the most important point when reading the figures. Two numbers do not become comparable simply because both are expressed in euros. Revenue across a set of businesses, holidaymakers’ spending and the contribution to gross domestic product measure different things. Anyone adding the €2.8 billion to another tourism total would first need to rule out overlaps and reconcile definitions.

Nor is FTE the number of everyone who worked somewhere around the industry at any point during the year. The unit converts work volume into full-time employment. Two part-time positions can together equal one full-time equivalent. Comparisons with other employment figures require the same unit of measurement.

High revenue and losses can coexist

For the charter segment, the paper reports a net loss of €34.7 million in 2025 and a net margin of minus 6.6 percent. At the same time, it cites high revenue per full-time equivalent. These findings do not contradict each other: revenue is the starting point, not the money left in the business after all costs.

A heavily booked boat can incur high running costs; an expanding fleet ties up capital. The industry total nevertheless does not mean that every individual charter operator makes a loss. Nor can it predict the price of a particular charter week. The figures are useful because they challenge the simple equation that more boats mean greater economic success.

Assessing a business would require information including actual prices achieved, weeks booked, financing and maintenance. For guests, what matters is the complete offer with clearly defined services. The analysis replaces neither scrutiny of a charter contract nor an assessment of a particular provider’s ability to pay its debts.

The proposed council is not yet a government body

HUP proposes a national nautical body and a shared development outlook through 2040. Its aims include better coordination of responsibilities, dependable investment conditions and skilled workers. It calls for greater weight to be given to year-round industrial and technical activities. This is the association’s policy initiative, not an already adopted government strategy.

That source role should remain clear. An employers’ association can supply relevant data while also representing its members’ interests. Its proposals are therefore neither automatically wrong nor automatically the only sensible approach. A later process must establish which measures are adopted, what public costs arise and what protection requirements apply.

Verifiable targets would be particularly informative in future: what training actually becomes available? Which investment is implemented? Which activities operate outside peak season? Only such results connect the vision with developments that can be observed.

Why the story matters beyond the boat show

For a coastal region, a shipyard, supplier or training provider is a different kind of employer from a purely summer business. That makes the broader perspective interesting, without promising a guaranteed path to growth. One good year does not establish how sustainable a business model will be.

Golden Beach therefore reads the paper as a starting point for two separate questions: what can be substantiated for the defined group of businesses in 2025, and what does HUP want to change for the future? Keeping these levels separate offers more than a headline revenue figure. It reveals an industry whose success is determined not only on the water, but also at workbenches, in development offices and through training.