The Bulgarian tourism industry continued booming this year, pulling in more than a billion euros (1.22 billion dollars) from foreign visitors only in the first eight months of the year, the government in Sofia said in a statement carried by Reuters on Friday. The international tourism revenue grew by 10.2 per cent over the corresponding period in the already good 2004. The number of visitors, 3,512 million between January and August, grew by 6.33 per cent, with the number of visitors from E.U. growing by 7.15 per cent. The figure does not include foreigners in transit. Most of the tourists, around 427,000, were Germans, followed by visitors from the neighbourhood, 390,500 Macedonians and 372,000 Serbs. More than 285,000 British has visited Bulgaria in the period, 178,000 from the neighbouring Turkey and almost 150,000 Russians. The largest growth in the number of visits was 121 per cent by the Irish, 51.5 per cent by the Dutch and 40.7 per cent by Turks. Bulgaria, offering a mix of both exclusive and economic, summer and winter tourism, has been recording huge growth in the industry over the recent years, Reuters said. --SP 1553 Local Time 1253 GMT
