Tourist spending includes all the costs of tourists during their journey and stay in a particular destination. The higher this consumption caused the higher profit and the stronger economic effects. Therefore, in order to maximize tourist spending, it is necessary to explore resources that attracts tourists the most and their willingness to spend money on and based on that to create a quality and unique tourism offer. The necessary preconditions for tourists to satisfy their wishes and needs are free time and available financial resources. If a person owns these resources, they can use them in accordance with their wishes and motives. The structure of consumption of each tourist differs regarding these motives, but also other factors such as the length of stay, type of accommodation and the way of organizing the trip. This paper compares tourist spending according to distinctive characteristics of visitors and their travels. This paper also presents the changes in the structure and level of tourist expenditures in the period from 1987 to 2019. In the eighties, Croatia was one of the leading tourism destinations in Europe in terms of tourists’ arrivals, overnight and consumption. During the war, these numbers declined significantly and rose again only after the 2000s. The aim of this paper is to compare tourism expenditures in the mentioned period and to determine in which segments of consumption the biggest changes have occurred.