Bulgarian Black Sea Resort Albena Sees 6% More Tourists in 2011

One of the top Bulgarian Black Sea resorts, Albena, has seen an increase of 6% in the number of tourists during the 2011 summer season, year-on-year, a company representative said.

The revenue will also be up but its increase will be smaller than the increase in the tourist numbers because of the cheaper offers in June, Albena's deputy marketing head Yovka Strashilova told BTA.

In her words, the greatest increase in terms of foreign tourist numbers by source country came from Germany with 20% more Germans visiting Albena in 2011 than did in 2010.

A total of 22 000 Germans stayed in Albena over the summer, registering over 200 000 night stays.

The number of Russian tourists higher than that of the Germans, reaching 20% of all foreign tourists in the resort. The number of Russian tourists grew by 6% compared with 2010.

Albena is located in Northeastern Bulgaria, 30 km north of the city of Varna; it has a capacity of about 15 000 beds.

The overall estimates for 2011 are that Bulgaria will be visited by 14% more tourists y/y, bringing the total number of foreign tourists to more than 6 million.