site.btaBulgarians' Trips Abroad Up 4.6% in May 2019, Y/Y

107 ECONOMY - STATISTICS - TRAVEL

Bulgarians' Trips
Abroad Up 4.6%
in May 2019, Y/Y

June 27 (BTA) - In May 2019, Bulgarians made 762,100 trips abroad, increasing by 4.6 per cent compared with May of 2018, the National Statistical Institute reported on Thursday. During the same month, foreigners made 946,700 trips to Bulgaria, up by 0.9 per cent, year-on-year.

Bulgarians' trips abroad increased in all types of travel: other types (6.1 per cent); business travel (5.5 per cent); holiday or excursion (2.1 per cent). Other types of travel accounted for the largest share of Bulgarians' trips abroad (39.1 per cent), followed by holiday and excursion (33.5 per cent) and business travel (27.4 per cent).

Bulgarians paid the most trips abroad this May to Greece (190,500), Turkey (157,000), Romania (61,300), North Macedonia (48,300), Germany (44,800), Serbia (44,700), Italy (31,600), Austria (24,200), the United Kingdom (21,900), Spain (21,300).

Foreigners' trips to Bulgaria in April 2019 increased in the following types of travel: other types (including visiting friends or relatives and transiting - 2.1 per cent) and business travel (1.7 per cent), while holiday or excursion travel has decreased by 0.9 per cent. Transit trips (254,600 in total)through Bulgaria accounted for 26.9 per cent of all foreigners' visit.

Of all foreigners who visited Bulgaria in May of 2019, 62.7 per cent were EU citizens, which is 0.7 per cent less year-on-year. Visits paid by citizens of other European countries went up by 3.3 per cent, with the largest increase reported among Ukrainian citizens at 29.8 per cent.

Among all nationalities, Romanians made the largest number of trips to Bulgaria in April 2019, at 264,000, followed by citizens of Greece (103,600), Turkey (99,000),
Germany (68,500), Serbia (55,300), North Macedonia (43,000), UK (33,000), Ukraine (32,200), Russia (28,300), Poland (22,000). IG/MY