The COVID-19 pandemic is very specific and is one of the pandemics that has had the most pronounced impact globally in recent decades. Although there were certain local outbreaks of diseases such as Ebola, SARS, etc., there was no significant spread of them on a global level, ie a global pandemic. It is possible to state that the COVID-19 pandemic largely paralyzed the world in 2020, ie at the very beginnings of global expansion. The health crisis is one of the factors that has stimulated the development of additional types of tourism, especially Robinson Crusoe tourism and tourism associated with digital nomads. The subject of this paper is the analysis of the impact of the pandemic on economic trends and on tourism at the level of the Republic of Croatia. One of the basic goals of this paper is to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy and the primary economic branch in the Republic of Croatia, ie tourism. The aim of the theoretical part of the paper is to conceptualize tourism and types of tourism, review the historical development of tourism and analyze the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic on the global and Croatian economy, with special emphasis on statistics related to tourism as an economic branch. From the research conducted in this paper, it can be concluded that the global pandemic has led to a decline in GDP that in some countries was even greater than 10%, on the other hand, China has recorded GDP growth, which is partly due to the fact that China exported medical equipment during 2020 in significant quantities. It is also possible to observe that the growth of unemployment rates has been more pronounced compared to the growth during the last financial crisis. When it comes to the Republic of Croatia, the pandemic affected the reduction of GDP, but on the other hand, the tourist results were better than expected, especially in relation to the preliminary results for 2021.