Tourism in Flanders grows again

Which were marked by the aftermath of the lockdown in Brussels and the attacks of the 22nd of March. The Flemish Minister of Tourism Ben Weyts announces today that almost 390,000 extra stays have been recorded (+10 percent) and 600,000 extra nights have been counted (+6 percent).

The arrivals from aboard increased between January and June 2017 by 13 percent and the domestic ones by 5 percent. The number of nights spent by foreigners for leisure and business purposes grew by 9.5 percent, while the number of nights spent by domestic and business travellers rose by 2 percent.

“The new figures show that the recovery in tourism is continuing on a sustainable basis,” says Minister Weyts. “The new growth has been made possible by the hard work of Toerisme Vlaanderen and especially the tourism sector. We have not stayed on and we have not run in panic’.

Whereas the American and Asian visitors certainly left Flanders behind after the attacks of 22nd of March 2016, they found their way back this year. For example, the number of nights spent by visitors from the United States rose by 20%, while the Japanese and Chinese markets grew by 20% and 22% respectively.

As far as the European markets are concerned, the most significant rises are to be found in the Hungarian (+40%), Spanish (+25%) and Czech (+20%) overnight stays. The Russian market is still catching up and for the first six months of the year, the Russian market rose by 39 percent compared to 2016.

Flandersnews.be / Expatica