A recent survey of Discovery Channel among its audience showed that Bulgaria was the top tourist destination in Europe.

This was announced by Gerard de Frouville, representative of Discovery Channel, during the opening of the Sixth international meeting of tour operators in Plovdiv on Thursday.

The survey was conducted among 35 000 viewers of the TV channel, the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) reports.

Viewers pointed to Bulgaria as the most desirable tourist destination in Europe and a place, which they would like to visit this year.

De Frouville attributed this to the campaign of the Bulgarian Tourism Ministry, which promoted the country with a video clip, which is aired on four TV channels.

His colleague, Lawrence Pavely, added that Plovdiv was of extreme interest for the projects of Discovery Channel.

Pavely shared that the crew will make a lot of photographs during their current stay and the TV channel planned to come back and shoot a movie about the city.

Representatives of more than 110 tourist organisations from sixteen countries are participating in the meeting, which will last until April 25.

The event was unveiled by the mayors of Plovdiv and Thessaloniki, Ivan Totev and Yiannis Boutaris, with the Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Tourism Irena Georgieva also attending.

According to Totev, the holding of the biannual meetings and the gathering of parties interested in tourism and business proved beneficial.

Georgieva highlighted that the cooperation between the municipality, the state and the private business in the sector was fully justified and successful.

The deputy minister revealed that this year's motto of the Tourism Ministry was the cultural-historical heritage.

Georgieva added that a series of thematic routes have been developed, such as “Sofia's Mount Athos”, “In the foottseps of the Thracians”, “Capitals and cities of Bulgarian Tsars and Patriarchs”, the “Seaside cities of Bulgaria”.

In line with this, a procedure for establishing an organisation for the management of tourist regions had begun.

Boutaris pointed that Plovdiv and Thessaloniki had close relations and common history and expressed hope that with common efforts the two municipalities could improve the lives of their citizens.