INS: Foreign tourists arrivals from EU countries grew last year by 8.4 pct

Bucharest, Feb 9 /Agerpres/ - The number of arrivals of foreign visitors registered at the control points on Romania's borders was in 2019 over 12.815 million, an increase of 9.3 pct over the number recorded in 2018, of which 6.254 million (48.8 of the total) arrivals of foreign visitors from European Union countries (plus 8.4 pct), according to data centralized by the National Institute for Statistics. Foreign visitors came mostly from countries of Europe (92.7 pct), the highest share belonging to visitors from the Republic of Moldova. Thus, the first six places in the rankings, after the share in the total number of arrivals, belong to countries situated in Europe: the Republic of Moldova (19.7 pct), Bulgaria (14.5 pct), Ukraine (13.7 pct), Hungary (11.9 pct), Serbia (4.5 pct) and Germany (4.1 pct). Compared to 2018, the highest number of arrivals for Africa (11.6 pct), Europe (9.7 pct), America (7.9 pct) and Australia, Oceania and other territories (5 pct) were recorded. Road traffic was most used by foreign visitors to travel to Romania. Compared to the previous year, in 2019, important increases were recorded for rail traffic, by 16.2 pct, and sea traffic, by 14 pct. AGERPRES (RO - author: Nicoleta Gherasi, editor: Constantin Balaban; EN - editor: Razvan-Adrian Pandea)