Bulgarians Spent Over EUR 104 000 at 2014 World Cup

Bulgarians who visited the 2014 FIFA World Cup have spent at least EUR 104 000 with bank cards during the sports event of the year.

The data provided by international payment system VISA suggests a total of EUR 3250 were spent each day.

Over 1160 transactions were made with a VISA, the company says.

Overall during the Mondial international tourists have spent almost Euro 280 M with Visa cards, which is EUR 89 M more than the expenditures in South Africa in 2010.

The host cities have registered a significant increase in tourism earnings compared to last year.

The largest increase was in Sao Paulo with other cities with significant earnings growths being Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Salvador and Fortaleza.

International tourists who visited the elite sport event increased traders' earnings in many areas of the country's economy with the hotel business, retail and restaurant businesses marking the highest increases, Ruben Osta, manager at VISA in Brazil, reported.

"As a part of their preparation for the World Cup, traders invested serious amounts in their infrastructure for electronic payment acceptance in pursuit of their goal to offer better service to tourists", he further said.

According to the Ministry of Tourism of Brazil the country has become a host for over a million football fans, which is with around 400 000 people more than expected.
From the VISA everywhere Travel Report it becomes clear that the people who had the highest expenditures with VISA cards were fans from the US, UK, France, Argentina, Mexico and the champion - Germany.