Bulgaria and Romania are to attract tourists from the more distant Asian countries through the development of a joint tourism product.

This was announced by Bulgarian Tourism Minister Nikolina Angelkova on Tuesday, BGNES news agency reports.

Angelkova also revealed that the two countries plan to open a joint tourist office until the end of the year.

The minister added that Bulgaria will also develop joint tourist products with another two of its neighbouring countries – Turkey and Greece.

According to Angelkova, the latest data show that at present Chinese tourists showed little interest to Bulgaria, as only 16 000 visited the country in 2014.

Angelkova expressed hope that through the investment of joint efforts with its neighbouring countries, Bulgaria is to achieve better results next year.

On the invitation of the minister, the chairman of the China's National Tourism Administration, who has the rank of a minister, is expected to visit Bulgaria at the end of March.

The chairman will be accompanied by a ten-member delegation, which is a large step forward, as it shows that the Chinese officials are interested in exploring the opportunities for joint tourist products.

Bulgaria will initiate another trans-border initiative together with Romania and the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), which foresees the establishment of the so-called tourist observatories.

The observatories will be established in the Bulgarian city of Ruse and the Romanian town lying on the opposite bank of the Danube river – Giurgiu.

The project is connected with scientific developments in the field of tourism and above all with the collection of statistics.

Angelkova pointed to its importance, as at present no data is being collected solely for the needs of tourism.

At the moment the data on tourism is being collected by the National Statistical Institute (NSI) at the request of Eurostat.

Angelkova pointed that this trend is to be reversed by the establishment of an unit for analyses and forecasts under the ministry's general directorate on tourism policy.

In this way, the ministry will collect statistics solely for the needs of tourism, which will aid the development of policies in the field.