Last year Bulgarians traveled abroad 4.515 mln times, which is 8% more than in 2006, the National Statistics Institute reported.

56% of the journeys were on business, 27.52 were organized holiday trips. Each tenth trip was a visit to friends or relatives.

Most Bulgarians went to Turkey and Greece - respectively 1.212 mln and 924,000 visits. Next are Serbia and Macedonia with 484,000 and 329,000 visits.

The popularity of the Czech Republic and Great Britain increased significantly, with the number of Bulgarians visiting the countries rising 57% and 54% respectively compared with 2006. Greece and Austria were visited by 30% and 28% more Bulgarian last year. While journeys to Luxembourg, Finland and Portugal were less than in 2006.

Statistics shows that most Bulgarians travel in August (445,000 people). Other popular months for travel are December, November and September with more than 400,000 journeys.

On the other hand, Bulgaria was visited by 7.725 mln foreign citizens last year, which is 3% up from 2006. Most foreign tourist came from Romania, Turkey, Greece and Germany.

The number of tourists from Hungary and Poland rose the most, while our country was visited by less Serbians and Macedonians.