One-fifth of the hotels on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast have already been shut down over the lack of tourists at the supposed height of the tourist season.

The situation is worst along the Southern Black Sea coast, and especially in the resort towns of Sozopol, Primorsko, Tsarevo, and Chernomorets, the Sega Daily reported.

In these towns, only 20% of the total capacity of the local hotels is being utilized. The paper points out that the crisis affects not only smaller family hotels but also larger establishments.

At the same time, a number of hotel owners in the south have indicated they intended to convert their hotels into nursing homes.

Meanwhile, the union of hotel managers and owners in the Golden Sands resort in the north is requesting that the Varna Municipality lower the daily municipal fees the hotels pay per tourist by 25% for next year. The hotel industry expects that 2010 will be even worse than 2009 in terms of the number of foreign tourists.

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