The income from
foreign tourism to the budget of Bulgaria will amount to three
billion euros in 2012. If compared to the previous year, general inbound flow
growth might reach 5-8%. However, this summer Bulgaria
expects the major flow growth to be from Russia. Such option was passed to
the Bulgarian News Agency by the Deputy Minister of Economics, Energy and
Tourism Ivo Marinov.
According to him, a
serious advertising campaign waged in Russia
by Bulgaria
and a good number of bookings for summer are considered to be good reasons for
optimism. 455 thousand Russian tourists visited Bulgaria in 2011 which is 20% more
than in 2010. Russia takes the fourth place in entering Bulgaria and the citizens
of neighboring countries form the major share of the its tourist flow.
According to the
official Bulgarian statistics, 6.4 million foreign tourists entered the country
last year which is by 4.6% more than in 2010. At the same time the income from
foreign tourism to the budget of Bulgaria grew by 3.8% amounting to
2.8 billion euro. Among leader on the inbound market are neighboring Romania (960 thousand), Greece (943 thousand) and Germany (700
thousand).
