Agathon sees more foreign tourists

The number of foreign tourists visiting Romania will go up again next year, due to the contracts concluded with the foreign tour-operators, Tourism minister Dan Matei Agathon was quoted as saying by Mediafax. “This increase is based on the contracts already concluded with the foreign companies for 2003,” the minister added. The number of EU tourists visiting Romania in 2001 went up 18% compared with the year before. Most of the tourists came from Germany, Scandinavia and CEE. On the other hand, the total number of foreign tourists fell more than 6% in 2001, according to the data supplied by the National Statistics Institute. Dan Matei Agathon says the number of foreign tourists went up 7% this year compared with 2001, given that several international tour-operators resumed business ties with Romania after a 17-year break. ZF