Internal tourism has expanded

The travel companies over January-March 2008 have provided services for 17,100 tourists, an increase of 4.9% compared with the same period last year. The rise stemmed from the 22.8% increase in the number of domestic tourists. At the same time, the participants in the international ingoing and outgoing tourism fell by 8.5%, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting the National Bureau of Statistics. A number of 865 foreigners came to Moldova during January-March 2008 through travel agencies and individual operators, a decrease of 33.1% compared with January-March 2007. The number of foreign tourists decreased mainly due to the 44.8% fall in the number of tourists that came to Moldova to holiday. The Romanian tourists made up 18.3% of the total number of tourists, while the Russian ones – 16.3%. But their number decreased by 35.2% and, respectively, 52.0% compared with January-March 2007. In this first quarter of this year, 7,700 tourists went abroad, a decrease of 4.6% compared with the corresponding period of 2007. Most of the Moldovans went abroad to rest and receive treatment (95.6%). The Moldovan tourists preferred such countries as Romania (38.9%), Ukraine (15.8%), Bulgaria (11.8%), Egypt (8.2%), and Russia (4.6%). As many as 8,500 people traveled within the country.