Overnight stays of tourists in Romania up 6.5 pct and arrivals up 10.4 pct in 2017

Over 12 million arrivals of Romanian and foreign tourists were recorded in the tourist accommodation establishments in Romania in 2017, up 10.4 pct, YoY, while the number of overnight stays advanced by 6.5 pct and exceeded 26.9 million, the National Institute of Statistics (INS) announced on Friday. 

Of the total number of arrivals in the tourist accommodation establishments, Romanian tourists accounted for 77.2 pct, while foreign tourists accounted for the rest of 22.8 pct, both figures being close to those registered in the similar period of the year before. 

The number of foreign tourists' arrivals in Romania recorded at border points went up by 24.3 pct, to 12.7 million. 

On the other hand, departures of Romanian visitors abroad, as recorded at border points, stood at 19.9 million in 2017, up 23.6 pct as compared to 2016, with 69.3 percent of the travelers using road transport for the trip. 

Of the total number of overnight stays, Romanian tourists accounted for 80.4 pct whereas the overnight stays of foreign tourists represented 19.6 pct. As regards the overnight stays of foreign tourists in Romanian tourist accommodation establishments, the largest share was held by tourists from Europe (72.9 pct of the overall number of foreign tourists) and of these, 84.8 pct were from countries belonging to the European Union. The average length of the stay last year stood at 2.3 days for Romanian tourists and 1.9 days for foreign tourists. 

The net occupancy rate of accommodation places in 2017 was of 31.2 pct overall tourist accommodation establishments, up 0.4 percentage points as compared to 2016. Higher rates of accommodation check-ins in the reporting period were registered in hotels (39.4 pct), tourist villas (25.9 pct), ship accommodation facilities (24.6 pct), bungalows (22.7 pct) and inns (22.6 pct). 

As regards the statistics for December, both arrivals and overnight stays in accommodation facilities recorded growths by 10.5 pct and 11.5 pct, respectively. 

Increases of 26.7 pct and 15.7, respectively, of the foreign tourists arrivals and the Romanian visitors' departures were recorded in December 2017 at border points, as compared to the same month of the previous year.

AGERPRES.