April 4 (SeeNews) - The volume of investments in Bulgaria's tourism and travel industry is expected to increase by 3.4% in 2018, from 1.45 billion levs ($911 million/741.4 milion euro) in 2017, the World Travel&Tourism Council (WTTC) said.
The investments in the sector are seen rising by 3.3% per annum in the next ten years to 2.03 billion levs in 2028, the WTTC said in its Travel and Tourism Economic Impact 2018 report on Bulgaria.
As a percentage of the total capital investments in Bulgaria, the tourism and travel industry holds 7.4% share, above EU's average of 5.1%, ranking the country at 72nd place out of 185 countries.
"The direct contribution of Travel and Tourism to GDP in 2017 was 3.03 billion levs (3.1% of GDP)," the WTTC also said, adding that it is expected to grow to 4.4 billion levs, or 3.6% of GDP, by 2028.
Leisure travel spending - inbound and domestic - generated 73.7% of direct travel and tourism GDP in 2017, or 6.6 billion levs, compared with 26.3% for business travel spending, or 2.36 billion levs.
Domestic travel spending generated 13.3% of direct travel and tourism GDP in 2017 compared with 86.7% of foreign visitor spending.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)