Bucharest ranks first among the areas that attract most tourists, with more than 1.8 million visitors. Two other counties, Constanta and Brasov, attract more than 1 million Romanian and foreign tourists a year each, according to National Statistics Institute data.
Seven other counties besides Bucharest attract many foreign tourists. More than 20% of the tourists in Sibiu, Cluj, Timis, Ilfov, Arad and Harghita come from abroad.
The map of foreign tourists in each county is almost identical to the map of economic development in Romania, since often the incoming tourists are businesspeople. Business travel generates more than half of the revenue of most hotels in the big cities of Romania. Counties like Teleorman, Vrancea and Giurgiu get the least tourists because they got few foreign investments unlike counties like Timis, Cluj and Iasi or Sibiu. Tourism infrastructure and attractions also play a part in the level of tourism development in some counties.
Bucharest has the most developed hotel infrastructure, with an accommodation capacity of 11,000 rooms in hotels, half of which four-star rated. This is also the city with most five-star hotels, 11, offering 1,930 rooms, which can sleep about 3,800.
More than 11 million tourists stayed in accommodation facilities in Romania last year, over 10% more than in 2016. Almost one quarter of them, 2.6 million were foreign tourists.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)