The forecast dramatic 60-70% decrease in the number of Russian and Ukrainian tourists is proving to be a false alarm, with bookings indicating a 10-20% decline, according to Bulgaria’s Tourism Minister Nikolina Angelkova.

In a Thursday interview for Nova TV, Angelkova underscored that bookings by German, Israeli, and Austrian tourists were encouraging.

Bulgaria’s Tourism Minister said that although there was no reason to believe in catastrophic scenarios, the tourism industry had to strive to achieve three or four times the usual turnover for the season as the season would be extremely difficult.

She explained that the Tourism Ministry was studying best practices in other countries in the sphere of relations between the state and beach concessionaires in order to prevent problems with exorbitant fees for chairs and umbrellas for hire.

Angelkova noted that the authorities were studying the pros and cons of the different practices as regards beach categorization and ownership of beach sections.

Bulgaria’s Tourism Minister said that an ordinance on SPA hotels was being developed, adding that accommodation sites would no longer be able to brand themselves as SPA establishments on the basis of the availability of a swimming pool.

She also informed that the public discussion of an ordinance on the categorization of accommodation sites was underway.

Angelkova argued that the ordinance would encourage small and medium-sized enterprises in the sphere of tourism by introducing two categories – high and low class, with the lower class envisaging lower requirements.