site.btaJanuary-September Tourists in Bulgaria to Exceed 10.3 Mln

January-September Tourists in Bulgaria to Exceed 10.3 Mln

Varna, on the Black Sea, September 28 (BTA) - By the end of September, the number of tourists serviced in Bulgaria since the beginning of the year will exceed 10.3 million people, including 5.7 million Bulgarians, Roumen Draganov, Director of the Institute for Analysis and Assessments in Tourism, told BTA on September 27.

Draganov is taking part in the third annual congress of the Bulgarian Union of Balneology and SPA Tourism, which is underway near the seaside city of Varna. The guests at the congress include European Spa Association President Thierry Dubois, Bulgaria's Deputy Tourism Minister Irena Georgieva, Deputy Environment and Water Minister Atanaska Nikolova, municipality mayors and international experts.

Draganov said Germany remains the number one market for Bulgaria travel. He predicted that the number of German visitors to Bulgaria will exceed 700,000. Besides being most numerous, the Germans usually stay in this country longer than any other foreigners. There are also many guests from neighbouring Romania and Greece, but their average stay here is far shorter.

Bulgaria is also visited by quite a few Russians, whose number is expected to reach more than 600,000, Draganov went on to say. He pointed to a comeback of holiday-makers from Central Europe, including Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians, who usually spend their holidays on the southern part of the Bulgarian coastline.

After the British market stagnated for a few years and Bulgaria rarely welcomed more than 150,000 tourists from that country annually, in 2016 their number is expected to top 200,000, according to Draganov. He reported a sharp increase in visitors from Iran. In the coming years, between 40,000 and 50,000 Iranians will spend their holidays in Bulgaria every year, he predicted.

The summer tourist season in 2016 is getting much longer than in earlier years, the expert said. Charter flights will continue until early October; the last flights carrying German tourists are planned for October 18.

This season has also seen large numbers of Bulgarians travelling around the country. According to Draganov, the holidays spent by Bulgarians in their own country have become shorter yet far more frequent. Movements are recorded almost every weekend, and when a weekend is merged with an official holiday to form a longer non-business period of three or four days, Bulgarians make between 450,000 and 500,000 trips.

So far this year, Bulgarians have made 650,000 trips to Greece, increasing by 4 per cent compared with the like period of last year, Draganov reported. Trips to Turkey have decreased; in January-September, the fall will be about 30 per cent.