The sunny spring helped boost the number of foreign tourists using Dutch campsites in the first six months of this year by 9%, the national statistics office CBS said on Friday.

In total 1.6 million people stayed at Dutch campsites between January and the end of June, an overall rise of 7.5%. The number of Dutch campers rose 7%.

The CBS says the figures are noteworthy because they follow five years of decline.

The strongest growth was booked in Groningen province, where camper numbers rose almost 50% year on year. Gelderland remained the most popular province, with 256,000 campers.