2024-09-24 23:03:31
On the threshold of the winter season, Bulgaria expects an upward trend in the number of visits by Bulgarian and foreign tourists to our winter resorts to be maintained in 2024/2025, writes BTA.
In mid-April of this year, the Ministry of Tourism announced that for the period December 1, 2023 – March 25, 2024, tourist registrations in our country were over 1.8 million, and on an annual basis, the most significant growth was for Turkish tourists in our country – by 29.1 percent. In mid-September, the Acting Minister of Tourism Evtim Miloshev reminded that only from one of the leading markets for our winter tourism – Turkey, the visits in the period December 1, 2023 – March 25, 2024 were over 53,000 and predicted that in the upcoming winter season has the potential for many more guests from this country.
However, whether the problems that have accumulated over the years in front of our winter resorts have been solved and what the new ones are, will become known at the upcoming meeting of the Commission on Tourism of the National Assembly held at 11:00 a.m. today in the conference hall of the “Rila” hotel in the city of “Borovets”. The topic of the meeting is: “Challenges and prospects for the tourism industry at the beginning of the 2024-2025 winter season.” The discussion will include political and expert representation of the Ministry of Tourism, representatives of industry organizations, businesses and municipalities, the parliament announced on its website.
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Tourism Tsoncho Ganev (PG of “Vazrazhdane”) announced at the last meeting of the committee that the mayors of Sofia, Bansko, Samokov, Smolyan, Chepelare, Dobrinishte, Razlog, representatives of tourist associations were invited to participate in today’s meeting . The purpose of this meeting is for the commission to listen to the concerns and expectations of the winter resorts, for the Ministry of Tourism to be there and also hear them, added Ganev at the time.
The winter statistics for the 2023/2024 season
For the period December 1, 2023 – March 25, 2024, in addition to the reported most significant growth of Turkish tourists, there was also an increase of 18.7 percent among guests from Italy, whose interest is mainly focused on urban tourism in Sofia . A growth of 3 percent was noted among Bulgarian tourists, visits from Great Britain were 1 percent more, our country was also visited by 4.6 percent more tourists from the Republic of North Macedonia. There is also growth from the German and Serbian markets, respectively – by 9.7 percent and 10.7 percent.
During the past winter tourist season, fewer tourists arrived in the country from Romania, Greece, but the most serious drop was from Israel – by 62.6 percent, the Ministry reported in mid-April this year.
From the beginning of December 2023 to March 25, 2024, the most preferred destination was the Metropolitan Municipality, which reported 329,000 tourists, followed by the municipalities of Bansko, Velingrad, Samokov, Smolyan, Chepelare and Varna, further statistics show of the Ministry of Tourism. Among our ski resorts, Bansko is the most visited, followed by Samokov (including Borovets), Smolyan and Chepelare, with the highest number of Bulgarian tourists registering in the mentioned ski resorts.
Urban, cultural and business tourism were particularly important during the last winter season, the department said. A total of seven municipalities – Stolichna, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Veliko Tarnovo, Ruse and Stara Zagora have attracted nearly 35 percent of all tourists according to current data for the last winter season. The share of trips to our winter resorts mainly for the purpose of ski tourism is over 19 percent. There was significant interest in eight spa destinations in the interior of the country, which attracted just over 19 percent of all tourists, and the remaining nearly 27 percent traveled to other destinations in the country, according to the Ministry’s data from April this year.
Legislative, executive and local authorities in search of solutions
For several years in a row, the Committee on Tourism in the Parliament has organized discussions dedicated to both the winter and summer tourist seasons. Some of the problems posed by businesses and municipalities find a solution, but others, for various reasons, “surface” at every one of the committee’s meetings in different parliaments. Among them are tax, infrastructure, personnel problems.
In the second half of November last year, at a meeting of the Tourism Commission on the topic “Preparation for the winter tourist season 2023-2024 – perspectives and challenges”, it became known that the main ski resorts of Bulgaria are ready for the winter tourist season. The problems of some of our winter resorts are the same as they were last year, and for some of them – for more than 30 winters. They are mainly related to the development of the ski infrastructure, which prevents Bulgaria from becoming a competitive destination with Western countries in the winter tourism sector. For this purpose, however, changes must be made to a number of laws. Some of them have been prepared, and others are yet to be developed, with a number of departments involved in this process, it was announced during a discussion in the parliamentary Committee on Tourism of the winter season 2023/2024.
Then the executive director of “Vitosha Ski” JSC Jan Kalchev stated that the situation of Vitosha in the last twenty years is waiting for a change of laws and concepts and a lack of vision for the mountain. Vitosha is no longer a resort, and in the 1980s (in the 20th century – note ed.) the tourist base was filled for five months in winter, said Kalchev. Facilities and projects are “in ruins” due to lack of time – the short life of several parliaments, as well as of an organization, and in that time many facilities have become old and their maintenance is no longer possible, Kalchev said then. He noted the need for legal change in relation to ski facilities.
At the same meeting of the Commission, the regional governor of the Sofia Region at the time, Yulian Lekov, emphasized the problem with the road leading Sofia – Borovets, which, according to him, is in a very bad condition, and expressed the hope that after the measures taken, its main repair will begin next year.
Bansko welcomes the winter with ready-to-use facilities that have undergone preventive maintenance, and the snow cannons are also ready, Maya Hristoskova, executive director of “Yulen” JSC, said at the time. We expect a lot of tourists because of the world cup rounds in February, she added. Hristoskova raised the question of a second elevator because of the huge crowd of people waiting in front of the current one. No new lifts have been built for twenty years, this means that something is fundamentally wrong, the mayor of the Bansko municipality, Stojcho Banenski, said at the commission’s meeting last year. Hristo Zaikov, deputy mayor of Razlog municipality, raised the problem of the power outage in the village of Banya, the lack of ecological and “perhaps state-subsidized transport” between Razlog, Bansko and Belitsa, which could also be used by tourists. A problem related to the lack of labor is the reluctance of job seekers to enter into employment contracts because they are in the meantime on the labor market after short-term work in Western resorts. Plumbing problems and the high price of water in connection with water associations were also among the problems highlighted by the deputy mayor of Razlog.
Mariyan Belyakov, executive director of “Pamporovo” JSC, pointed out at last year’s meeting of the commission the need for the construction of new elevator facilities and gave an example of an opportunity regulated in the Energy Act for linear facilities, which, in his words, are similar to elevator poles, pointing out the need to ease the construction regime for these facilities as well. In order to build a new lift, one goes through hell, he figuratively illustrated the procedures. Other problems facing the development of our winter resorts were related to the topic of changing the purpose of the forest territories, as well as the definition of “national resort” in general, he added.
Meanwhile, last week the parliament adopted at first reading amendments to the Law on Tourism, submitted by deputies from GERB-SDS, which regulate the criteria and procedure for declaring a national resort. The amendments provide that the declaration of a national resort shall be made by a decision of the Council of Ministers on the proposal of the Minister of Tourism. The application for the declaration of a national resort is submitted by the mayor of the respective municipality, on whose territory the resort or parts of it fall, after a decision of the municipal council, the bill also provides.
The personnel problem
For demographic reasons, and not only, the problem with personnel in tourism in Bulgaria has been deepening for years. According to data from the Ministry of Tourism from last year, nearly 170,000 people work in the “Tourism” sector, with many related branches, and the staff shortage is between 30 and 35 percent. The reasons for this deficit are complex, they are related to the image of the sector, salaries, its seasonal nature, the then Minister of Tourism Ilin Dimitrov pointed out in mid-February 2023. In search of personnel, businesses turn to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, Nepal, while in the second half of April this year, the parliament adopted changes to the Law on Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria, which allowed workers from third countries to extend their stay are in the country in order to guarantee service throughout the tourist season. With the changes, a legal possibility was created for a foreigner who resides on the territory of Bulgaria and holds a residence permit, other than the Single permit for residence and work, highly qualified employment and intra-corporate transfer, to apply for residence without having to leave the territory of the country. The possibility of extending the period of residence of foreigners performing seasonal work for a period of up to 90 days and entered with a short-term residence visa is also foreseen.
At the beginning of August this year, the Acting Minister of Tourism Evtim Miloshev and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Maria Angelieva continued the dialogue between the two institutions with the aim of easing the tourism sector. At the meeting, the measures taken by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ease the work of the consular services in third countries, which received many requests for the engagement of labor in Bulgaria, were discussed. Then Minister Miloshev emphasized that the actions of the state should be discussed early on by all institutions that depend on the issuance of visas for workers from third countries, not only for the next summer season in 2025, but also for the upcoming winter season. The aim is to prepare a working mechanism for a more efficient procedure for hiring workers, which will ease both the upcoming winter tourist season and the summer in 2025.