site.btaBulgaria Ranks Sixth in EU for Growth in Overnight Stays in H1 of 2025

In the first half of 2025, Bulgaria ranked sixth among European Union countries in growth of overnight stays in tourist accommodations, show Eurostat data published on Thursday on the occasion of World Tourism Day, September 27.

Nearly 9.86 million overnight stays were recorded in Bulgaria from January to June 2025, compared with 9.26 million in the same period of 2024, marking an increase of 6.4%.

Across the EU, there were 1.279 million overnight stays, which is an increase of 2.3%, compared with the first 6 months of 2024 (1 249 million). 

The highest increases were recorded in Malta (12.7%), Latvia (8.6%) and Poland (8.5%) had the highest increases in the share of overnight stays in tourism accommodation in the first 6 months of this year compared with the same period of last year. Meanwhile, Ireland recorded a fall (-3.5%), and Germany (+0.2%), Sweden (+0.5%) and Belgium (+0.9%) reported the lowest increases.    

The rise in nights spent by foreign visitors (non-residents of the country, EU and non-EU)  in the first half of 2025 was a little more pronounced than the growth in domestic nights, +3.1% compared with the first half of 2024.

Foreign visitors accounted for almost half (48.0%) of all overnight stays in the first half of 2025, with large differences among EU countries. The biggest share of foreign overnight stays at the beginning of the year was recorded in Malta (93.6%), Cyprus (93.1%) and Croatia (87.6%).

By contrast, foreign guests accounted for less than one-fifth of overnight stays in Germany (18.5%), Poland (19.2%) and Romania (20.2%).