September 19 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria expects to welcome between 4.8 million and 5.0 million foreign tourists in 2016 through the end of its summer season, tourism minister Nikolina Angelkova has said.
Bulgaria was visited by 4.5 million foreign tourists in the first seven months of 2016, an increase of nearly 17% compared to the same period of 2015, Angelkova said on Saturday, according to a statement from the ministry.
"If this pace is maintained until the end of the year, 2016 will be the most successful year for Bulgarian tourism," Angelkova added. She did not elaborate.
Bulgaria welcomes the first foreign tourists on its Black Sea coast usually in May. The summer season at Bulgarian seaside resorts usually ends in early October.
For the first seven months, total revenues from foreign and domestic tourist overnights in Bulgaria grew by 18%, reaching 665 million levs ($379.55 million/340 milllion euro). A total of 14 million overnights were registered.
Tourists from France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary have started returning to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and the country has kept its appeal to visitors from Romania, Germany, the UK, and Israel.
"We have achieved very good results on the Russian market," Angelkova added.
Bulgaria issued over 260,000 tourist visas to Russian nationals in the April-August period, an year-on-year increase of 30%, according to data from the foreign ministry in Sofia.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)