site.btaBulgaria: A Safe Tourism Destination

The Tourism Ministry always aims to present Bulgaria as a safe and attractive destination; the issue of safety is always on the agenda, regardless of the nature of security: health, geopolitical, etc., said Tourism Minister Zaritza Dinkova during a forum on "BG TOURISM - WINTER 2023/2024", which took place in the southwestern town of Samokov Monday. It was organized by BTA with the participation of central and local government officials, representatives of tourist businesses, sectoral organizations and the news media, to discuss what messages Bulgaria wants to send for potential tourists for the winter season that has just started.

It was the fourth edition of the discussion forum on tourism, which is held twice a year: at the start of the winter and then the summer tourist season.

The Minister pointed out that at every meeting with foreign partners at state and business level she always presents Bulgaria as a safe destination.

BTA Director General said that the “big messages from Bulgaria are that it is a safe destination offering good prices and no limitations”. “All self-respecting countries try to formulate a common message before each tourist season," Valchev said.

The message for this winter season is that Bulgaria and specifically Borovets is a safe destination, Angel Dzhorgov, the Mayor of Samokov which is right next to the skiing resort of Borovets, said at the forum. He expressed hope that this ski season will be better than the previous one.

“The message I think we can send is that Bulgaria is a peaceful destination for tourism, said Pavlin Petrov, chairman of the Bulgarian Association of Catering Establishments. He gave an example of such a destination, Samokov, and urged the media “to send calm messages”.

Challenges for tourism              

Pavlin Petrov, Chairman of the Board of the Bulgarian Association of Catering Establishments, said the key challenge in the tourist sector is the lack of workers and urged the government to make finding a solution a national priority. He also criticized the Tourism Ministry, saying that the ministry had done nothing for a year.

Krassimir Dzhambazov, who introduced himself as one of the first people to start own tourist business and open a guesthouse in nearby Govedartsi 30 years ago. He complained of frequent power cuts in the village and the lack of infrastructure to offer tourists an experience in a snowless season.

Rumen Draganov, director of the Institute for Analysis and Evaluation in Tourism, pointed to the lack of statistical information on accommodation as a problem, and the available statistics is often contradictory.

The lack of young people in tourism is a systemic problem and is the real barrier to the development of Bulgarian tourism, said sociologist Mira Radeva, who runs a hiking club and identified herself as “a Borovets aficionado”. “We lack educated, motivated, well-mannered, well-versed in foreign languages young people,” she said. Her experience has been that young people are unwilling to work, while at the same time the procedure for hiring 14-year-olds as interns is very difficult. She argued that even 14 is too late for internships and that children should be taught “the beauty of work” from a very young age.

BTA Director General Kiril Valchev commented that it is worth telling people more about schools that train people to work in tourism so that there is more interest in such schools.

Tourism Minister Dinkova said that they have a project to support the association of schools in the restaurant and hotel sector. "It is extremely important for us to invest in human resources because this is a serious problem, not only in our country, but in the whole European Union," Dinkova said.

Kristian Ivanchov, deputy mayor of the southwestern town of Kyustendil in charge of tourism said that tourism is negatively affected by lacking predictability. He said that one example was that the Osogovo skiing zone had power cuts for five days recently.

Tourism and news media

The most important thing we should do together is to send positive messages: the kind you create, said Gospodin Yovchev, the CEO of bTV Media Group.

BTA Director General Kiril Valchev said that BTA will summarize the information provided by the winter resorts every day about the snow cover, temperature, wind speed and other indicators.  

Ivan Mihalev, commercial director of Bulgaria Media Group, said that joint efforts of central and local governments are needed to create and develop another kind of infrastructure, besides knowledge about a given destination. The problem is not that people don’t have knowledge about the given destination but that there is a lack of access infrastructure to many of Bulgaria's attractions, some of which are neglected, Mihalev said. In his words, there is a huge resource for a campaign dedicated to the topic of responsible, sustainable tourism, for the promotion of landmarks and their conservation.

Martha Evtimova of Nova TV said that tourism and the media are communicating vessels. “We are a mirror of what is happening, and our mission is to keep the mirror clean,” she added.