Credit Crunch Mega Tourist Projects In Bulgaria Left On Standby

Ski resort, golf course plans on the back burner

Investors have put on hold tourist projects worth nearly 4.5 billion leva with only a handful daring to blame the tight funding in the aftermath of the global financial turmoil or fear of few holidaymakers, a check by Dnevnik showed.Investors rushed to inject about 2.5 billion leva into large-scale ski resort projects praising the huge potential of winter tourism and set to create what they dubbed the Bulgarian Alps but now many have given up the pies in the sky.About two billion leva was supposed to be spent on the construction of about two dozen golf courses over the next five to eight years around Sofia and the northern Black Sea coast. None of the projects has been abandoned yet but investors are hunting for buyers while waiting for better times.Rila Sport has not frozen its massive ski project in ski resort Panichishte, in Bulgaria's Rila mountain, said managing director Slaveyko Staykov.The 900 million leva Panichishte-Ezerata-Kabul project scheduled for completion in 2016 should deliver 27 ski runs with a total length of 80km and 14 Alpine tracks, and accommodate between 5000 and 15 000 tourists.Also in standby mode is Bulgaria's other major ski project, Super Borovets, which was due to be unveiled in 2012.Sources told Dnevnik that the investor, Rila-Samokov 2004, which was specially incorporated to revamp the resort, is revising investment plans and might freeze the project whose value jumped to 1.5 billion leva from one billion leva at the onset.The construction of the ski zones that local tycoon Hristo Kovachki is developing in the Martinovi Baraki, Boricho and Iskrovete regions near Borovets may also be postponed."The financial crisis has not seriously affected our plans although the construction period might be extended," said the businessman's spokeswoman, Desislava Filipova.