Štrbské pleso (source: Sme)
A record-breaking 4.3 million tourists visited Slovakia last year, up by 16 percent compared to 2014. The hike in 2016 may be even around 10 percent higher on the year, said Igor Donoval, general director of the Slovak Tourist Board (SACR).
Nevertheless, this still could be affected by unforeseen geopolitical and economic events in Europe, but domestic tourism seems to be quite strong at the moment. So, if anything happens abroad, Slovaks will probably spend holidays in their home country instead, thereby compensating for the loss of foreign tourists, said Donoval, as reported by the TASR newswire.
Out of the 4.3 million tourists, 2.6 million were Slovaks, which is by 16 percent more than in the previous year. Meanwhile, the increase in the number of foreign tourists in 2015 amounted to 17 percent.
SACR last year engaged in a range of marketing activities, including participation at fairs, TV ads and campaigns run via Google, YouTube and Facebook. For example, the commercial campaign on Eurosport was seen by at least 284 million people in 53 countries, said Donoval.
Meanwhile, the national tourism portal www.slovakia.travel was visited by more than 2.5 million people in 2015, which is twice as many as the year before, TASR reported.
