Most concessionaires along Bulgaria’s Southern Black Sea coast have already complied with the requirement to display prices for umbrellas and sunbeds in both levs and euros. On Kraimorie beach, for example, boards with the updated rates are visible at each entrance.

Concessionaire Nikolay Dimitrov explained that the tariffs are set in advance and cannot be altered. “Our prices are fixed. You can see that they haven’t been rounded up – 4 euros and 9 cents, 12.78 euros. We are not allowed to adjust them because they are determined by contract,” he told BNT.

Although the euro is not yet legal tender in Bulgaria, many foreign visitors prefer to pay in the European currency. The difficulty comes with giving back change. “We don’t have euro cents available. We will need to secure them starting next year. For now, if someone pays in euros, we return the balance in levs,” Dimitrov added.

The dual pricing system is also visible in the restaurants along the beaches. Receipts are issued with amounts shown in both currencies. “When foreigners come, they prefer to pay in euros,” said beach restaurant owner Nina Baeva.

Some Bulgarian holidaymakers, however, have noticed a different tendency – prices rising ahead of the euro’s official introduction. “I don’t know whether it’s speculation or something else, but things aren’t looking good,” commented customer Petko Stoynov.

Restaurant owners reject the claim that they are deliberately pushing prices upward. At the same time, they admit that meeting the new requirements has been costly. “When we have menus with photos, we can’t just shift the numbers. We have to add the euro prices next to those in levs. It doesn’t look good, it covers the dishes. Printing one such menu costs 100 levs, and a restaurant needs at least 12 of them,” said restaurateur Maya Pepelyankova.

Looking ahead, business owners are already discussing how to handle rounding once the euro becomes official. In most cases, this is expected to be upward. For customers, this fuels worries about further price hikes, but for many in the sector, it seems like an unavoidable adjustment on the path to adopting the common currency.