In Moldova here will be certified 40 tourist routes and worked out four new national routes that will be connected to the European tourist routes. There will be also rehabilitated 20 tourist facilities, laid out five recreational areas, built two sports complexes and set up 50 pit stops. The measures are contained in the strategy for developing tourism until 2020 that was approved by the Government, IPN reports.

The number of foreign tourists over the next six years is projected to rise by 3% a year. The growth within domestic tourism will be 4% annually. Thus, towards 2020, the number of foreign tourists will increase to over 100,000, while of domestic ones to over 300,000 people.

The strategy will be implemented at a cost of over 167 million lei. The incomes in the tourism sector will come to over 1 billion lei by 2020.

Twenty tourist routes will be certified this year and by another ten over the next two years. By 2016, there will be registered 30 tourist routes, two of which will be connected to European tourist routes. Fifty tour guides will be trained in accordance with the European standards.

In 2012, the tourists who stayed at collective accommodation facilities in Moldova totaled 268,100, 88,900 of whom were foreigners.

According to the National Participation Council, which consists of representatives of civil society, there is a weak connection between the shortcomings existing in the tourism sector and the policy measures defined in the strategy.