The pandemic has changed the travel preferences of tourists around the world. If there was less travel in the first year of the pandemic, the summer of 2021 was marked by holidays with tests and certificates. 2022 was more relaxed, and tourists started traveling again, writes Economica.net.
The number of foreign tourists who visited Romania in 2022 increased by more than 50% compared to 2021. However, as statistical data shows, there is still a need for as many tourists to reach the pre-pandemic level, which it claimed the lives of more than 6.6 million people.
In the summer of 2022 it was better driven, without certificates or tests, and this was also seen in the numbers. 1.16 million foreigners came to Romania in the first nine months of this year, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INS). This figure is almost 55% of the total number of foreigners who visited us in the same period of 2019: 2.10 million.
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The most foreign citizens who visited Romania were the Germans, who kept their position as the most numerous foreign tourists who came to Romania this year, even if their number is 43% lower than in 2019, when they still occupied the first place position, INS data show.
Tourists from Israel have returned to the top and are in second place this year, the same as in 2019, but they are 42% less than then. Compared to last year, the increase is higher, almost 200%.
The top is continued by the Italians, Americans and Hungarians, who occupy the same positions as in 2019. The United Kingdom and France continue this year’s top, with the Moldovans in eighth place, followed by the Poles and, for the first time in the top 10, the Ukrainians in number of 42,360. Most of them came for private purposes, and only 5,666 of them traveled for business purposes. The war may have caused Ukrainians to choose closer holiday destinations. Most of them, about 30,000, came by car, INS data also show.
In addition, the number of Ukrainian tourists who came to Romania this year and stayed in collective and private tourist accommodation structures, excluding those who took refuge in Romania, is similar to the one recorded in 2019 : 43,560.