While the number of foreign arrivals was up by 16%, domestic arrivals increased by 12.8%, shows data from the Statistics Office.

In addition the overall rise in the number of tourists, February brought a higher number of overnight stays (+12.7%).

Slovenians, who accounted for 56% of all overnight stays, generated 10% more overnights than in February last year. The number of overnight stays by foreigners rose 16%.

Broken down by municipalities, 38% of all nights were spent in municipalities with health resorts, 30% in Alpine municipalities, 12% in coastal municipalities and 7% in Ljubljana.

The key foreign markets for Slovenian tourism in terms of numbers and overnight stays in February were Italy (20%), Austria (13%), Croatia (12%) and Serbia and Hungary (both 7%).

In the first two months of the year, arrivals rose 11.6% and overnights by 9.5% over the same period last year.