site.btaTourists in Bulgaria Increased by Average of 6% in 2012-2016 - Deputy Minister

Varna, on the Black Sea, September 28 (BTA) - In the last five years (2012-2016) tourists in Bulgaria increased by 6 per cent on average, Deputy Tourism Minister Milko Teofilov told a Thursday news conference occasioned by the tenth edition of the Black Sea Tourism Forum. The data cited is from the World Tourism Barometer, he specified.

The average increase in Bulgaria is above both the EU and the world average, Teofilov said. In terms of the average increase of tourists in the last five years Bulgaria outranks countries like Turkey, Italy and France and has a potential for more.

Between January and July this year, Bulgaria was visited by 4,092,000 foreign tourists, 7.2 per cent more than a year earlier, and revenues increased by over 11 per cent, Teofilov said.

Varna Deputy Mayor Kosta Bazitov added that by mid-August revenue from tourist fees in the municipal budget amounted to 3.6 million leva. He predicted that the revenue would exceed the 4-million-lev target.

The subject of the two-day Black Sea Tourism Forum in Varna is "Local Identity and Global Tourism".