August 29 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian unit of German tour operator TUI expects to welcome more than 220,000 foreign tourists to the country by the end of this year's summer season, the tourism ministry said.
TUI Bulgaria has recorded an increase in most of the major foreign tourist markets this year, with German tourists up 20%, those from Poland up 100% and UK tourists up 28%, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Tourists from the Netherlands, Belgium and Russia have risen by 13%, 53% and 15%, respectively.
"For the summer season of 2017, we expect more tourists from France, as well as more Nordic and Dutch tourists to Varna," TUI Bulgaria's CEO Plamen Katsarov said in the statement.
Summer season 2017 could be even better than the record high results reported for 2016, which could be achieved by work towards better quality in all aspects of tourism, Katsarov added.
The number of foreign tourists who visited Bulgaria in the first seven months of the year grew by an annual 21% to 2.8 million, according to statistics office data, released earlier on Monday.