The Nationals Statistics Institute has recorded a drop of 21,4% in Bulgarian trips abroad in September, in comparison to last year. Photo by BGNES
The number of trips Bulgarian traveled abroad in September decreased by 21,4%, year-on-year, data from the National Statistics Institute (NSI) has showed.
According to the data, only the trips to Turkey have increased – by 7,4%. The biggest drop was registered in the trips to Slovakia – by 55,6%, Japan – 55,6%, Switzerland – 51%, Portugal – 43,9% and Israel – 43,7%.
Bulgarians also decreased their trips to Italy – by 39,6%, the UK – 38,9%, Spain – 37,8%, Greece – 37,6%, France – 37,1%, the Czech Republic – 36% and Poland – 35,6%.
In September, Bulgarians most often traveled on visiting trips – 36,4%, followed by business trips – 31,8%, vacations – 25,3% and others – 6,5%.
In the meantime, the trips of foreigners to Bulgaria increased by 8,1% in September, compared to last year, and reached a total number of 1,018,500.
Visits by citizens of EU countries went up by 2,3%, with the biggest increase being from Portugal and Cyprus – 27,9% and 20,3%, respectively.
In September, less visitors came from Sweden, France and Italy. The decrease was 22,5%, 19,4% and 13,1%, respectively.
However, Bulgaria saw more visits from tourists coming from other EU countries – 25,4% than last year. The biggest increase was registered from Macedonia – 59,2%, Serbia – 47% and Russia – 44,6%.
NSI data showed that most of the foreign visitors came on vacation – 50,7%. The transit passing people made 25,5% and people coming on business trips were 12,8%. Other reasons were given by 9,9% of the people.
Only 1,1% were visiting friends or relatives in September. This is a drop by 26,4% in comparison to the same month last year. The business trip also registered a slight drop – by 0,3%.
On the other hand, vacation trips increased by 13,1% in September, trips for other reasons – by 15,2% and transit passing people – by 2,1%.