The results from the first quarter of 2019 are here, regarding the number of visitors from various nationalities to Romania. Hungarians are in the top three, only surpassed by Bulgarians and visitors from the Republic of Moldova.
According to Turizmus, the first quarter of 2019 saw 4.7% more visitors than in the same period in 2018. The Romanian National Institute of Statistics (INS) recorded 2,228 million people at the border crossing checkpoints. The most amount of people come from the Republic of Moldova, making up 20% of the overall visitors. Bulgarian visitors are in second place with 17%, while Hungarians rank third, with almost 13% of the visitors heading to Romania from Hungary.
Naturally, such statistics cannot tell the reason behind the visit. Some may have popped over to see some family while others could have had business deals to attend to or enjoy the sights of the country as tourists.
After Hungarians, Ukraine provides the 4th highest number of visitors while the fewest people come from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Libya, Kamerun, Saudi Arabia and Palestine respectively (only 0.1% of the visitors).
In 2019, the number of visitors from the EU also rose by 3.2%, meaning that more than half the visitors (51.5%) are citizens of EU member states.
When it comes to other places in the world, the country received 11.6% more visitors from African states, 7.5% more from the USA, 4.8% more from Europe and 0.6% more from Asia compared to last year’s first quarter.
The statistics reveal that most of the visitors (382 thousand) arrived through the Otopeni airport. However, the state of the airport is rather depressing. In terms of punctuality and the quality of services, Romania’s national airport is in 129th place on a list of 132 assembled by AirHelp.
The Hungarian border checking point in Nagyvárad sees the second biggest amount of visitors, with about 210 thousand people crossing to Romania there. Lots of people arrive through the southern Romanian town of Giurgiu or Albita near the Romania-Moldova border.
There were more people arriving by train (8.2%) and more people who opted for cars (5.7%) than this time last year, too.
Featured image: Pixabay / Illustrations
Devastating statistics! Hungarian population in Transylvania decreasing rapidly