Romania loses attractiveness to foreign tourists

Sorin Melenciuc 03/06/2019 | 10:37

The number of foreign tourists in Romania declined in April for the 10th month in a row and the drop accelerates this year but the local tourism industry maintains momentum as the number of Romanian tourists rises.

In April, the number of foreign tourists in Romania declined by 4 percent year-on-year to 204,000, on lower interest of tourists from all over the world, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

The number of foreign tourists from Europe declined by 4.2 percent compared to April 2018, to 149,800, while the number of Asian tourists decreased by 10.4 percent, to 27,500.

The number of north-American tourists declined by 10.9 percent to 13,100.

The number of foreign tourists in Romania became to decline since July 2018 and never stopped ever since.

This decline could be associated with images of brutal intervention of local gendarmes against protesters in Bucharest on August 10, during the Diaspora protest against the Romanian government.

Many television channels from all over the world have showed images of violence.

Despite the trend seen in the second half of last year, the number of foreign tourists in Romania has reached a record-level of 2.79 million in 2018, up 1.3 percent compared with 2017.

In January-April 2019, the number of foreign tourists in Romania declined by 6.6 percent year-on-year to 647,900 – this means a drop by more than 45,000 foreign visitors compared with the first four months of 2018.

By countries, the main sources of foreign tourists in Romania this year are Germany, Italy, Israel and France.

The number of Romanian tourists rose by 9.2 percent in the first four months of 2019, to 2.55 million.

The overnight stays, a key index for the tourism sector, increased by 9.1 percent year-on-year in the first four months, to 6.25 million.

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