Tourism

Tourism is one of the most thriving and, yet most problematic, business sectors in Bulgaria. The greatest challenge the country faces is finding ways to make the utmost use of its unique tourism resources. Bulgaria provides first-class mountain and sea resorts, but because of poor marketing the country attracts fewer tourists than what might be expected. Bulgaria is putting forth many efforts in developing its tourism infrastructure. However, the budget of the State Agency for Tourism (SAT) is insufficient, and Bulgaria is seeking the co-operation of home and foreign investors. SAT, which is in charge of the tourism sector, and the newly-created tourism board, comprised of the leading private tourism organisations in the country, have already made the first steps toward co-operation. Plans exist for new agencies to be opened abroad in countries already interested in Bulgaria. Improved advertising is expected to increase revenue and to create a better image of the country abroad. Real estate market tendencies show that more and more foreigners are interested in purchasing construction areas on the Bulgarian seaside and in building new luxury hotels, leading to a record price hike. Although the demand is high, the Bulgarian seaside is already over-populated during the summer season and supply of plots suitable for constructing new hotels is low. Many tourists complain of the crowded shores and investors have transferred their interest from the popular resorts like Slunchev Bryag (Sunny Beach) and Zlatni Pyasutsi (Golden Sands) to the smaller and little-explored regions away from the large cities. The country has still unexplored and unexploited resources for cultural and historic tourism, religious, eco, spa and adventure tourism. Bulgaria is a land where traces of seven civilisations have been discovered. These include the first pre-historic civilisations in Europe, Thracian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Islam cultures. Poor management and marketing of these sites, however, has led to low, if any, interest abroad. Currently, cultural tourism provides only a few per cent of the total tourism revenue. One of the reasons for the low culture tourism revenue is poor accessibility to the locations. Undeveloped infrastructure is a problem the entire tourism industry faces. This is especially true as far as airports are concerned. Bulgaria attracts foreign tourists mainly with its sea and mountain resorts. Bansko and Borovets ski towns and the famous Slunchev Bryag and Zlatni Pyasutsi beach resorts are just a few of the names attracting large numbers of foreign tourists. A double pricing system, charging different prices for Bulgarians and foreigners, existed in the country for some time, but it was abolished in 2005. Another change the tourism sector saw over the past couple of years was the ban on construction work during the holiday season. Trends show that the number of tourists visiting Bulgaria increases four to 10 per cent annually. The majority of tourists come from Greece and Germany, exceeding half a million. Other nations interested in Bulgaria include Macedonia, Serbia, the UK and Russia. In 2006, tourism revenue reached 2.06 billion euro, registering a 5.45 per cent growth. The number of foreign tourists also increased by 6.64 per cent, exceeding 5.158 million people.