In the first ten months of 2019, non-resident tourist expenditures amounted to RON 5.5 billion RON (~EUR 1.2 billion), according to the latest data released by the National Institute of Statistics (NIS).
The total spending amount was generated by 2,105,900 tourists who visited Romania between January 1 and October 30 this year for the dominant purposes of doing business and attending congresses, conferences, fairs and exhibitions, the report reads. The aforementioned purposes account for 52.6 percent of the total number of non-resident tourists. Travel for holidays, shopping, sports and cultural events, visits to friends and relatives, and medical treatment and the like also accounted for a big chunk of the reasons for visiting Romania.
Of the total, accommodation costs accounted for nearly half (49.4 percent), with accommodation including breakfast being the preferred choice (93 percent). In terms of shopping, tourists liked to spend more money on food and beverages (45.8 percent), followed by presents and souvenirs (32.8 percent). Car rentals accounted for more than half (53.5 percent) of the total spent on transport, while expenditures for tickets for amusement parks, fairs, casinos and slot-machine halls accounted for 35.2 percent of the total spent on recreation.
Of non-resident tourists arriving in Romania, 46.5 percent had their stay organized by travel agencies and 33.0 percent did so themselves. Tourists preferred to fly into the country (79.6 percent); only 11.1 percent used their own cars to travel.
Tourists coming to do business or to attend congresses, conferences, fairs and exhibitions drove total spending up, with their expenditures accounting for more than 57 percent of the total, the NIS report highlights.
