As many as 8 million tourists will have officially visited Bulgaria at the end of January, counting from February, outgoing Tourism Minister Nikolina Angelkova said.

Angelkova told the Bulgarian National Television that every month of 2016 was "unprecedented" in the number of arrivals to the country.

As many as 5.5 million foreign tourists were in Bulgaria sometime during the four most active months of the holiday season last year, she added.

The figure "8 million" confirms previous projections that more people have visited Bulgaria over the past twelve months than the size of its population, which is around 7.1 million according to the latest statistics.

As many as 400 000 foreign nationals have spent the Christmas and New Year holidays in Bulgaria, Angelkova added, citing data that foresees a rise in the number of winter tourists by 5-7%.

Half as many Bulgarians spent the holidays in a winter resort, according to her estimates.