site.btaBulgarians' Trips Abroad Up in March 2024 Y/Y

In March 2024, the number of trips of Bulgarians abroad was 679,100 or 19.1% more year-on-year, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) reported on Monday. The number of visits of non-residents to Bulgaria was 756,500 or 7.2% more in comparison with the same month of the previous year.

There has been an increase in the number of trips of Bulgarians abroad for the purpose of visiting, studying, attending cultural and sports events - by 29.5%, holiday and recreation - by 18.6%, while business trips decreased by 3.6%, data show. The largest relative share of the total number of trips was formed by other purposes’ trips - 53.2%, followed by trips for holiday and recreation trips - 29.4%, and business trips - 17.4%.

Most trips of Bulgarian residents were made to:

Turkiye – 194,000
Greece – 117,100
Romania – 66,600
Serbia – 58,300
North Macedonia – 36,100
Germany – 33,000
Austria – 24,900
France – 20,500
Italy – 18,300
The United Kingdom – 17,900.

The trips with other purposes (as a guest, for education, attending cultural and sports events) composed the greatest share of the total number of trips of Bulgarians abroad – 50.4%, followed by trips with holiday and recreation purposes - 35.5%, and with professional purpose – 14.1%.

The share of visits of ЕU citizens was 49.7% of the total number of non-residents’ visits to Bulgaria and reached 375,700, the largest being by visitors from Romania – 37.4%, and Greece - 30.8%. The visits of non-residents in the group ‘Other European countries’ were 310,400, or 41% of all visits to Bulgaria. The highest number of visits were from Turkiye - 150,900, or 48.6%.

Most visits to Bulgaria were from:

Turkiye – 150,900
Romania – 140,500
Greece – 115,700
Ukraine – 56,100
Serbia – 46,300
Germany – 30,200
The United Kingdom – 27,100
North Macedonia – 21,400
Italy – 15,200
Poland – 13,200.