2024-07-17 01:28:10
From the Mediterranean countries, not only Croats, Greeks and Albanians rest in our country
Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians and English are the predominant foreign tourists on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast this summer as well. However, since 2-3 years, a new trend has been clearly noticed – more and more Spaniards, Italians and Turks prefer our resorts.
Since 2021, the Spanish and Italians have
increase by 10-15% every year
The same applies to the French, and the number of Turkish citizens who chose to vacation with their families on the Bulgarian coast is almost equal to the number of Polish citizens.
The reason for this interest in countries where Bulgaria is hardly advertised for vacationing is only one – the climate.
Water and air temperature along the Black Sea coast
is always 2-3 degrees lower than
on the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea,
whether or not there are hot flashes.
In recent years, the thermometer on the Spanish, French and Italian Riviera has often passed 40 degrees in the shade during the day, and hovers between 27 and 28 degrees on the water. In Antalya last summer, the sea water on the surface did not fall below 29 degrees at all, and it is cool indoors even with the air conditioner on.
And along the Bulgarian coast, the average temperature of sea water on the surface is 25-26 degrees.
“Until recently, only Turkish chefs arrived by the sea from our southern neighbor to pass on their experience in the all inclusive, but
whole families are already coming
with children,
to spend their summer vacation in more tolerable temperatures. They don’t come only for the sea, they are also fond of cultural and historical tourism. These tourists are by no means among the Bulgarian emigrants who came to see their native places”, comments the chairman of the Regional Tourist Chamber in Burgas, Delyana Tsoneva.
The case with Spanish vacationers is a little different. They began to visit Bulgaria more en masse before the pandemic thanks to the efforts of 2-3 tour operator companies, which mainly organize cultural and historical programs. However, this is how they also discovered the coolness of the Black Sea and started looking for holiday offers themselves.
From the Mediterranean countries on our sea, there are not only Croats, Greeks and Albanians. There are quite a few Romanians, but a significant number of them are already transiting through Bulgaria on their way to Turkey and Greece.
And both of our southern neighbors made very profitable charter flights from Romania.
In Albena, for example, this summer they report a decrease in Romanians. Mostly Bulgarians and Germans vacation in the resort, there is a slight increase in Polish and Czech guests.
“They prefer all-inclusive hotels and don’t spend a lot of money outside of that – the holiday is pre-calculated and doesn’t include extra costs.
Only two of our 5-star hotels are self-catering”, says Marinela Tsaneva, director of “Exploitation” in Albena.
Despite the wars does not follow the tributary
in Israeli and Ukrainian tourists
Ukrainians come individually by car or organized through a tour operator. A significant number of them already own properties on the Southern Black Sea coast.
To the north, tourists from Ukraine mostly arrive by bus. They are from the western part of the country, where there is no military action, and they are generally more modest in their vacations.
Romanians and Scandinavians dominate Golden Sands this summer, but they don’t spend much. The purses are usually untied by the Germans, but this year, like last, they are almost gone.
The reason is that even during the pandemic, airlines reduced their capacities and now take flights to destinations with a longer season, and not to Bulgaria, comments the chairman of the Association of Incoming Agencies Ivan Groshev.
Groshev and his colleagues discuss a striking situation in which a one-way ticket Düsseldorf – Varna cost between 500 and 700 euros for the period May – June. Naturally, at such prices, interest is weak. According to Groshev, the joint marketing program launched last year by the previous government on the German market and the European market in general is starting to give results and should be continued.
“We have the assurance of Minister Evtim Miloshev that we will work in this direction,” he added.
Measures have been taken for next year – the SunExpress airline together with a Bulgarian company will position one plane each in Varna and Burgas, which, measured in terms of tourists, could mean up to 100,000 additional guests for Bulgaria. But according to Groshev, Bulgaria is still not known on the German market on the scale we want. “We do not have an established communication strategy and we do not work hard on the good image of our country”, he believes.
Otherwise, there are also Indians, Nepalese, Sri Lankans, the Philippines, and former Soviet republics in the seaside resorts, but they are guest workers. As tourists from Central Asia, only one group has so far arrived from Uzbekistan, whose nationals used to come for seasonal work as cherry pickers, general kitchen workers, maids and receptionists. It is still too early to say whether the import of tourism personnel from all these countries will also lead to an increased presence of their citizens as vacationers.
So far, there are no official data on how the season is going, but despite the complaints of the tourist business, the latest edition of the quarterly report “Trends and prospects of European tourism” of the European Commission indicates that in Bulgaria the number of foreign tourists in the second quarter is 29% higher than last year and this puts the destination in second place in Europe after Serbia, where it is 40%.
Despite the costs more and more
Europeans choose Scandinavia
Norway, Sweden and Denmark are the new summer holiday hits for Europeans. Last year, the number of foreigners staying overnight in Norway in August increased by 22% compared to a year earlier, and in Sweden by 11%.
This year, until the end of June, there is a new annual growth of foreign tourists by 18% in Norway, by 9% in Sweden and by 38% in Denmark.
According to a study by the website Visit Sweden, two out of five Germans plan to change their travel habits due to the heat in southern Europe – most often by choosing other times of the year and avoiding July and August, but also by looking for new destinations.
“Heading to cooler countries isn’t just about the weather,” explains Suzanne Andersson, CEO of the government campaign Visit Sweden. “It travels to places that, in addition to being cooler,
are not overcrowded with tourists,
she says.
The growth of foreign tourists in the Nordic countries is somewhat unusual also due to the fact that the standard of living there is quite high and as a place to spend money they are relatively expensive destinations.
Interestingly, it is not only people from nearby Germany who are attracted to the Scandinavian coolness in summer. Increasingly, among the foreign guests are residents of Spain and Great Britain. Among the most popular routes for them is, for example, la Route des Trolls – the Trolls Road, which is a mountain pass winding through the mountains on the way to the fjords.
Scandinavians welcome this increased interest in their countries with mixed feelings. For example, the capital of the Finnish province of Lapland – Rovaniemi, located beyond the Arctic Circle,
registered a 29 percent jump in overnight stays
for last year
and this is a challenge as there are not many hotels there at all.
“This trend started years ago, but has intensified with the painfully hot summers in southern and central Europe,” says Sanna Karkainen of the Helsinki Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), responsible for promoting tourism in the area.
“What worries us the most is that too many people gather at the same time,” emphasizes Jan Uwe Trigestad, long-term mayor of the Norwegian village of Hellesylt, Stranda municipality, where an impressive tourist liner with 6 thousand passengers on board docks .
“This is a small village. Between 280 and 300 inhabitants remain in Hellesilt during the winter. A bit of a culture shock sets in when another small town by European standards suddenly appears. But we are looking to adapt”, the Norwegian points out.