A total of 340 000 Bulgarians traveled abroad in April 2010, which is a decline of almost 30% year-on-year, announced the Bulgarian National Statistics Institute (NSI).

The number of Bulgarians traveling to Denmark, Israel, Japan, Turkey, and the Netherlands has increased while all other monitored destinations have become less popular with Bulgarian travelers.

The largest share of the Bulgarians who traveled abroad in April 2010, 44.2%, went on business trips, 31.8% visited friends and relatives, 19.4% went on excursions, and 4.6% named other reasons for traveling.

However, there is an increase of 7% in the number of foreigners that visited Bulgaria during the same period of time, reaching a total of 520 000. The increase is due mainly to the transit passengers through Bulgaria who are 33% of all foreign visitors.

There is an increase in the number of people coming for “excursion and recreation” by 2.1% , and

for “other purposes” by 7.5%.

Decrease is reported in the number of foreigners coming to Bulgaria for business and “visits” - 18.2% and 2.1% respectively.

Most of the foreign visitors in Bulgaria are from the EU countries. The increase in the number of people coming from Slovakia is 37.4%, from Italy – 37.1%, from Russia – 44.4%, from Serbia – 32%, from Norway – 28.4%.

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