Macedonia's airports welcome 6.000 passengers during New Year Holidays

During the New Year weekend Macedonia's airports welcomed 6.101 passengers, or 8 percent more in comparison to the same period last year, the Ministry of Transport and Communications said Tuesday in a press release.

The frequency of passengers reached its peak on the New Year's first day, when Skopje and Ohrid Airports handled 2,268 and 345 passengers respectively.

"Renovated airports in Skopje and Ohrid were opened last year. Skopje's Alexander the Great airport got a new passenger terminal, thus increasing its capacity to serving 4 million passengers per year," the press release reads.

Number of Air Passengers Increases in Skopje and Ohrid

In October, the number of passengers on airports in Macedonia increased in comparison with the same period last year.
According to the data published by the Macedonian Ministry of Transport a few days ago, the number of passengers on the Skopje and Ohrid airports reached 57,512, compared to 50,541 passengers last year.
The increase is a result of the increased number of passengers on the Skopje airport, which reported 56,180 passengers, which represents an increase of 17.1 percent. The number of regular flight lines grew as well, by 15.4 percent. In October, there were 689 regular lines compared to 597 lines last year.

Number of Foreign Tourists in Macedonia keeps Increasing

In October 2011, the number of tourists in Macedonia amounted to 49,379 and the number of bed-nights reached 119,198, informed the Macedonian State Statistical Office.
These figures show that the number of tourists increased by 17 percent and the number of bed-nights by 24.1 percent compared to October last year.In the same period, the number of Macedonian tourists dropped by 5.8 percent, while the number of foreign tourists increased by 35.2 percent.
Year-on-year, the number of bed-nights of Macedonian tourists increased by 6.1 percent despite the decrease of the number of tourists, and the number of bed-nights of foreign tourists grew by 41.2 percent. Analyses on what this really means for the state budget will be published in a week.

200,000 Euros in Subsidies for Tour Ops who bring Foreign Tourists

By now, some EUR 200,000 in subsidies has been paid to tour operators who brought foreign tourists to Macedonia. The Macedonian Ministry of Economy has informed that even more means have been provided for this purpose for the next year. 

Some EUR 1 million has been projected for 2012. In the meantime, applications for subsidies for July and August are ongoing. Tourists from the Netherlands, Russia and Denmark come to Macedonia, says Zoran Nikolovski of the Ministry of Economy. 

The authorities are overwhelmed by the increase in the number of tourists coming to Macedonia. They expect higher foreign currency influx and Macedonia to be put on the global tourist maps.