Romanian tourists spend nearly EUR 44 mln on NYE holidays in local resorts

More than 170,000 tourists spent the 2019/2020 New Year’s Eve in Romania, 2.5% more than the year before, and they spent almost EUR 44 million in the local resorts (an increase of 10% compared to the 2018/2019 NYE), according to data from Romanian Tourism Employers Federation (FPTR) quoted by G4media.ro.

The government decided to give two extra days off to the public sector employees – December 27 and January 3, and this meant that the Romanian tourists were able to enjoy a 4-5 day New Year’s Eve vacation in internal or external destinations.

“Romania remains the main holiday option for Romanian tourists, but increasingly more foreign tourists also started to consider our country as a New Year's Eve destination. The affordable accommodation rates, cheaper food and the distribution of holiday vouchers have contributed to the increase in the number of tourists. However, the abnormal warm weather in this period has lowered demand for domestic and foreign ski destinations,” Dragoș Răducan, FPTR first vice-president, said in a press release.

Rural tourism led in booking preferences, with 58,500 tourists spending the New Year’s Eve in rural guesthouses, 2.6% more than in the previous year. Spa resorts attracted 25,600 Romanian tourists, a 9.3% year-on-year decrease, while 49,300 people chose to spend the New Year holiday in mountain resorts, 32.4% more than last year.

More than 31,500 tourists, a number similar to the one registered the previous year, spent their NYE holiday in hotels in big cities.

Meanwhile, the number of Romanians going abroad for the New Year’s Eve holiday went slightly down. About 10,800 Romanian tourists booked international holidays through local travel agencies, a year-on-year decrease of 2%. They spent about EUR 6 million, and most of them purchased packages for winter destinations in Austria, France, Italy and Bulgaria.

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