OREANDA-NEWS. November 29, 2010. Travel agencies and operators provided travel services to 133.9 thousand tourists and excursionists in January-September 2010, up 16.9% against the same period last year. The number of tourists and excursionists who participated in the external tourism in January-September 2010 increased by 26% to total 101.9 thousand people.

At the same time, the number of the internal tourism participants reduced by 5.1%, to 25.9 thousand and that of the receiving tourism – by 4.7%, to 6,018 people. 55.7% of this number of foreign tourists who visited Moldova in January-September 2010 using services of travel agencies and operators, came to the country for vacations, 36.2% - with a business trip, 8.1% - for treatment. Most foreign tourists arrived from Romania (20.6), Russia (15.5%), Ukraine (7.6%), Italy (5.9%), USA (5%), Great Britain and Northern Ireland (4.6%), France (3.8%), Germany (3.8%), Turkey (3.7%), Bulgaria (3.3%), Israel (2.9%), Poland (2.6%) and Netherlands (2.3%).

Most Moldovan citizens went abroad for vacations (98.4%). Most of the trips were to Turkey (46.6%), Bulgaria (28.2%), Ukraine (9.9%), Romania (4.4%), Egypt (3%), Greece (2.1%) and Russia (1.2%). Moldovan citizens’ trips within the country for travelling were mostly organized by travel agencies of Chisinau municipalities (44.5%) and the development regions of Center (26.9%) and South (18.4%).