More than 9,273 million were the foreign tourist visits to Bulgaria in 2018, or a 4.4% increase compared to a year earlier, according to data of the National Statistical Institute (NSI), the press office of the Ministry of Tourism said.

First position for inbound tourism last year belonged to Romania, with more than 1.377 million visits, or an increase of 20.9% compared to 2017. Greece and Germany ranked second and third, with over 1.116 million and 850 thousand, respectively.

“For the first time the foreign tourist visits to Bulgaria have exceeded 9 million, beating the record levels of the last two years,” said Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova. Foreign visits from Turkey were over 625,000, from Macedonia – nearly 560,000, and from Russia – over 511,000. The top 10 of inbound tourism markets include Poland with 425,000 visits (up 7.9%), Serbia with over 421,000 visits (up 7%), UK with 390,000 (up 15.2%), and Ukraine with over 379,000 visits (up 24.4%).