In a trend that has been persistent in the past 2-3 years, the resorts on Bulgaria's northern Black Sea coast are hoping for crowds of Romanian tourists, Darik Radio reported.

Bookings are going well and some hotels will be full for the coming holiday season. The best-seller is a 3-night all-inclusive package for 100 euro, says Grigor Fidanov of the Union of Hotel Owners in Golden Sands. He expects the Romanian tourists for Easter to outnumber those who came last Christmas. Most of the visitors are from Bucharest and the nearby towns.

People in the tourist business say that the large number of Romanians in the Bulgarian resort is due to better quality of facilities in the Bulgarian coastal resorts than in Romania's and the higher living standards of Romanians.

Some 70 per cent of Golden Sands hotels will open for Easter and most will be shut back after the holidays because they are not yet ready for the real tourist season. The true start of the season is expected on May 2 when a serious wave of tourists on charter flights is due.

A total of 942,071 Romanian tourists visited Bulgaria in 2009. The constituted the biggest group of foreign tourists from a single nation, according to official statistics.