The Christmas holidays proved a very nice end to a busy tourist year. "Christmas and New Year is traditionally a very busy period in Bruges," said Mayor Renaat Landuyt. "The combination of a large and varied number of year-end events with the enchanting, cozy Christmas atmosphere in our heritage city attracts both the leisure visitor from the region as foreign tourists to stay."

In the two-week vacation were counted in Bruges more than half a million visitors. More than 75,000 visitors together totaled 127 000 overnight stays, of which nearly three quarters of foreign origin. Of the more than 436 000 day visitors came 16% from Bruges or the immediate area, 49% of domestic and 35% from abroad.

Bruges were the busiest days for 19 and 27 December where 50,000 visitors were counted in the city center of Bruges. The turnover in this period was generated by visitors is estimated at more than 30 million.

Renaat Landuyt mayor is satisfied: "The terrorist threat did equally concerned that the Christmas period different from other years would elapse, but the figures already show that visitors were finding their way to Bruges."

The figures were obtained on the basis of mobile telephony data. This rapid tourism barometer has been produced by Tourism Bruges and the autonomous provincial company Westtoer in partnership with Proximus.