Bulgarian Travel And Tourism

Just as the Sofia organisors of the Madonna concert are still counting their coffers after the country's most high profile pop concert, the Bulgarian tourist industry are starting to count their coffers after what will probably be described as a ‘challenging' summer. From direct observations of the way the Black Sea tourist product was shaping up, it would seem that there will be more losers than winners. There will undoubtedly be some winners and these are likely to be the ‘all inclusive' hotels who cottoned on early to the pan European ‘all inclusive fashion'.

We as a company provide around two thousand transfers in the Southern Black Sea area and what is noticeable is that the same hotels appear week after week on the booking sheets. These are not bookings made as part of a traditional package but bookings made dynamically i.e. each component is booked separately. The fact that people are booking from their own home or office the same hotels would indicate a gold star award for the marketing arms of these Black Sea hotels. However, for each winner in the hotel section we fear there will be several losers. The losers may need deep pockets if they are to be seen next year.

Participants in the ‘all inclusive' game are witnessed by their coloured wristlets. The same participants are also seldom seen in bars and restaurants outside of their hotel bases. Queue: theLosers....these would be any bar or restaurants that are adjacent to ‘all inclusive' emporiums. Also littering the losers' column will be hotels that did not have a robust and flexible marketing policy.