More than 1.9 million foreign tourists visited Romania last year, almost 200,000 (or 12%) more than in 2013. Some 77% of them came from Europe, 12% came from Asia, and less than 7% came from North America, data recently released by the National Statistics Institute (INS) shows.

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Germany, Italy, Israel, France and the U.S. were the top five countries of origin for incoming tourists in 2014. Almost 800,000 foreign tourists came from these countries. The U.K., Hungary, Spain, Poland and Austria completed the top ten. Israel had the highest increase in terms of tourists coming to Romania, up by more than 44%, to 139,000 people. The second highest growth was in the number of Chinese tourists, which was up by 43%, to 19,000. Third was Ukraine, with about 31% more tourists than in 2013.

The number of Russian tourists instead went down by almost 5%. The number of American and Canadian tourists increased by more than 20%. Romania was also more attractive for Brits and Spaniards, 19% more people coming from these countries. INS makes these statistics based on incoming data received from Romanian tourist accommodation units. Foreign tourists accounted for only 23% of the total number of visitors recorded by hotels and guest houses, in 2014. Arrivals recorded in local accommodation units totalled 8.44 million last year, up 6.6% compared to 2013 while the overnight stays amounted to over 20 million.

The data also shows the number of nights spent by foreign tourists in local hotels, which went up by 8.4% last year, to a total of 3.76 million. Foreign visitors spent on average 2 nights in Romania, which means that most of them came for business and had short stays in the country. In fact, less than a quarter of all tourists went to Romanian resorts in the mountains, at the seaside or to the Danube Delta.

The total number of foreigners who entered Romania in 2014 reached 8.44 million, up by 5.3% compared to 2013. This figure comes from Romania’s border crossing points. It includes the commuters near the border who came to Romania for shopping, for work, or just to visit their friends and families, non-residents who just transited Romania, as well as other tourists who came to Romania but didn’t stay in registered touristic units. More than half of the foreigners who entered the country were Hungarians (30%) and Bulgarians (24%), and almost 10% were Germans.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com