Early data indicates strong tourist summer ahead for Southeast Europe

Early data indicates strong tourist summer ahead for Southeast Europe
By bne IntelliNews July 18, 2017

Tourist arrivals were up across the board in Southeast Europe in May, with the data hinting at a very strong summer season this year. 

This follows a similarly strong performance in 2016, as countries from the region are increasingly effective in wooing tourists, while holidaymakers look for cheap, safe alternatives to other East Mediterranean destinations like Egypt and Turkey, which have been hit by terror attacks in recent years. 

Another factor helping to boost Southeast Europe tourism is the growing number of flights operated by low cost airlines. WizzAir, for example, recently added to its Bucharest-based fleet, opened a base in Chisinau and launched routes from Budapest to both Tirana and Skopje — the latter as part of a major expansion in Macedonia planned this year. 

Across the region, the sharpest increase in tourist arrivals in May was in Montenegro, which saw numbers increase by 14.1% (foreign tourists were up by 13.9%). 

Montenegro is expecting tourism revenues to exceed €1.5bn a year by 2026. The sector is also expected to attract significant investments, which should support economic growth in the near term. One of the biggest ongoing projects is the development of the Lustica Bay resort on the Adriatic coast, which will see investment of €1.1bn over the next 25 years.

Both Montenegro and Croatia could, however, see their tourism sectors hit by forest fires following a drought and extremely hot temperatures in both countries. As of July 18, firefighters were battling fires in the outskirts of Croatia's second city Split, while fires were also raging in the Lustica peninsular in Montenegro. 

Meanwhile, the number of tourists visiting Macedonia also soared, by 11.7% y/y in May after jumping by 18.4% y/y a month earlier, data from the statistics office indicated on July 12. Serbia was not far behind, with tourist numbers increasing by 11.5%, while numbers increased by 10.6% in Romania. Other countries in the region saw a more modest, but still positive, growth in tourist numbers.

Data

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