Visitor Numbers Up in First Half-Year
Slovenia attracted 269,254 visitors in June, which is up 8% year-on-year, and 1,148,906 since the beginning of the year. The majority were foreign visitors, their numbers increasing by 10% over the first half of 2006, the freshest figures from the Statistics Office show.
Overnights went up by 3% to 789,594 in June compared to the same period last year. Out of these, 325,968 were by visitors from Slovenia, up 8%, and 463,626 by foreign guests, which is level with last year's figure.
Accommodation facilities recorded 178,320 foreign guests in June, up 6% over June 2006, while the number of guests from Slovenia went up by 11% to 90,934.
Commenting on the figures on Wednesday, head of the Slovenian Tourist Board (STO) Dimitrij Piciga said he was upbeat about the rest of the year. "We expect the goal of 6% growth in visitor numbers and 4% growth in overnights at the annual level will be attained or even topped."
In the first six months of the year, overnights increased by 7% y/y to 3,447,404, 57% of which was by visitors from abroad, mainly from Italy (19%), Austria (15%), Germany (13%) and Croatia (9%). According to STO, increases were recorded in the markets where promotion was strongest. The first half of the year saw a 43% surge in visitor numbers from Spain, a 23% increase in visitors from Russia and a 35% increase in visitors from Ukraine.
On the down side, the number of visitors from Britain dropped by 1%, one of the reasons being the cancellation of flights between Slovenia and the UK by budget carrier Wizzair. Nevertheless, STO expects the trend to reverse after Rynair, another low budget-carrier, launched scheduled flights between London and Maribor in June. Similarly, new scheduled flights between Helsinki in Ljubljana contributed to 108% increase in the number of visitors from Finland in the first half of the year.
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