August 16 (SeeNews) - The number of tourists visiting Moldova in the first half of 2017 rose by 7.5% on the year to 134,300, the country's statistics bureau said on Wednesday.
As much as 24% of the nearly 64,700 foreign tourists who visited the country during the first half of 2017 came from Romania, 13% came from Ukraine and Russian tourists accounted for 9%, the statistics bureau, BNS, said in a statement.
Tourists booked 590,674 overnights in Moldova during the January-June period, up 7.4% from a year earlier. Foreign tourists booked 130,749 overnights, 19.5% more on the year.
During the six months through June, the average length of stay of a Moldovan tourist in the accommodation facilities in the country was 7.6 days, while foreign tourists stayed for 3 days on average.
The statistics bureau did not provide monthly figures.
In 2016 the number of tourists visiting Moldova rose by 9.8% on the year to 306,307. Tourists booked 1.48 million overnights in Moldova in 2016, down 1.7% from a year earlier.