Sofia, Feb 03 (BTA/GNA) – People have started spending their money for travel to beat inflation, said the director of the Institute for Analysis and Evaluation in Tourism, Rumen Draganov. He was asked by BTA to comment the latest data of the National Statistical Institute (NSI), according to which trips by Bulgarians abroad in December 2022 increased by 9.7% from December 2021 to a total of 604,700, and foreigners’ visits to Bulgaria increased by 60.3% from December 2021 to 761,900.
Bulgarians and citizens of other European countries have started investing in tourism. Draganov stressed the increasing number of flights from and to the airports in Sofia, Varna, Burgas and Plovdiv and the difficulty to book a ticket. He said that flights in both ways are packed with Bulgarians, Italians, Spaniards, French, Scandinavians and tourists from Central Europe. This boom has been seen mainly in the last months of 2022 – October, November and December, indicating a surge in cultural tourism and travel to urban and historical destinations.
Bulgaria is becoming more and more a four-seasons-tourism country, Draganov said, commenting on the significant cultural, spa, wine and rural tourist increase in the autumn and spring seasons.
The last three months of 2022 saw a 10% increase in tourist arrivals in Bulgaria compared to 2019, which was a good year, said Draganov. An increase was also reported in travel by Bulgarians abroad: 15% for the last three months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2019.
Of the total number of foreigners – 761,900 – who visited Bulgaria in December 2022, only 10% arrived for ski tourism, Draganov said. Non-EU tourists also contributed to these positive figures in December, with charters from Israel starting in mid-December and the UK at the end of the month.
The occupancy rate in hte mountain resorts for the December holidays was 98% for Pamporovo, 95% each for Bansko and Borovets, and 96% in Velingrad, compared with a national average occupancy rate of 85% at the end of December 2022.
Draganov also said that skiing resorts are using every opportunity to secure as much artificial snow as possible. He pointed out that skiing resorts in Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France have closed due to the warm weather.
BTA/GNA