Bulgarian Tourism Sees Strong Start, Faces Staffing Challenges
Coastal hoteliers are increasing employee wages by at least 20% to address the staff shortage
It is time for Bulgaria to position itself on the main European and non-European markets as an four-season tourism destination, the head of a key tourism think-tank has said.
Rumen Draganov, who heads the Institute for Analysis and Assessment of Tourism, has told Focus Radio that that, while the winter tourist season is becoming ever more intensive and "interesting" with BGN 970 M expected this year, "we can now speak of an autumn and spring tourist season" as well.
The winter season in Bulgaria always brings much lower revenues compared to the summer, whose contribution to tourism earnings is three times as much, Draganov has added.
He has predicted that SPA and golf tourism, working with better-off customers, may be in for a "big future".
"Bulgaria needs five airports that will secure regular charter flights and also ones of low-cost airliners to our country," Draganov has argued.
His words come a week after the Tourism Ministry announced that for the first time ever Bulgaria is expected to draw in more tourists that the number of its population.
Minister Nikolina Angelkova put the early estimates for 2016 at 8 million, in a country of 7.1 million. However, data suggests Bulgaria also had a bigger number of foreign tourists that of locals in 2014 and 2015, when the figure of arrivals was 7.2 million and 7.3 million respectively.
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