Bulgaria Reports Foreign Tourists Growth

Bulgaria registered a growth of 7.3% in the number of foreign tourists for the period January-November 2017 compared to the same period a year earlier, National Statistics Instutute said on 29^th of December. For the 11 months of the year, the country was visited by 8,425,620 foreign tourists. The largest number of tourists were from Greece, Romania, Germany, Turkey, Russia and Macedonia.

More than 1,060,000 tourists from Greece visited Bulgaria, which is a growth of over 8% compared to the same period last year. More than 12% is the increase of tourists from Turkey.

Tourists from Romania were 1,054,170.

The tourists from Germany were more than 853,120, which is an increase of over 5%, according to the statistics.

Only in November, the total number of foreign tourists visiting Bulgaria was 399,517.

"The figures are exceptionally good. If we keep this growth rate, we stand a real chance of exceeding 9 million tourists on an annual basis. That would be a record and we will work hard to achieve it, " Bulgaria’s Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova said as quoted by the press office of the ministry. She added that the Ministry of Tourism will continue its work on transforming Bulgaria into a year-round tourist destination.

"The reported data also gives us the ability and motivation in 2018 to strive to reach the figure of 10 million foreign tourists who would choose our country for holidays or travel," Angelkova said.

More than 6,3 billion BGN are the revenues from international tourism for the 10 months of this year, according to central bank’s data. For the period January - October 2017, the growth was 9.2% compared to the same period last year. For October, the revenues from international tourism and travel amounted to nearly BGN 394 mln. The increase compared to October last year is 6.6%.