National statistics reported growth of 18.6% over the initial 2 months of 2017. Winter tourism has contributed the most to the good result, as this country has offered some of the best skiing conditions within the whole of Europe due to abundant snowfalls this winter.

In 2016 this country was visited by 10.6 mln. foreigners, says Minister of Tourism Stella Baltova at a joint press-conference with the board of the National Statistical Institute. 2.35 mln. of those have crossed the state transit. The other 8.25 mln. are real tourist visits with at least one night spent here. The gradual upward trend within Bulgarian tourism as of 2009 is ongoing, with the only exception of 2015, Baltova went on to say.

The results of the March-ended international tourist exhibitions in Berlin and Moscow and the reviews of expert editions show that Bulgaria has been stepping out of the shadow of its competitors and a record-breaking summer season is expected again.

This country has been turning into something more than just an alternative of Turkey as a destination, with attractive coastal sand beaches for family tourism and better tourist infrastructure. That is what most German tour operators say for the FVW respected tourist edition.

The forecasts of Russian tour operators are similar and their branch editions report increase of 10 – 20% in the number of early bookings for the Black Sea destination.

The Varna and Burgas airports are registering significant growth, regarding booked summertime flights on 2016 for a series of markets: Holland – 57%; France – 40%, the Czech Republic – 31%; Slovakia – 21%; Sweden – 15%; Poland and Finland – 9% each and Germany – 6%.

As of April 2017 the ministry of tourism will begin to provide data to the tourist business on the number of airplane flights to the Varna and Burgas airports over the forthcoming tourist season, Minister Baltova said at the joint press-conference with the National Statistical Institute. Thus hotel owners will plan better the operating pace of their hotels. Sergey Tsvetarski voiced to the public his expectations on substantially improved tourist statistics with the implementation of the Common System for Tourist Information which will link in real time the online registers of the hotels with the municipalities and institutions. Caretaker Minister of Tourism Stella Baltova explains the lack of such a system:

“The common system should be introduced in the period September – October 2017 and its implementation requires the following things: several registers have to be linked to each other and several institutions are to provide and use the data of those institutions. The major register will be the one of hotels. The second one will belong to the ministry of tourism. They will be linked to the NSI, the municipalities, the National Revenue Agency and the interior ministry. A public procurement is necessary, in order for the Common System for Tourist Information to be created. What I found here was a public procurement proclaimed which is now being appealed. I spoke to all institutions involved, asking them when we can expect the response of the Commission for Protection of Competition. No such response has been submitted so far.”

English version: Zhivko Stanchev