The coalition of environmental and civic organizations "Let Nature Remain in Bulgaria” together with a dozen associations in the tourism industry recently signed a memorandum for joint activities in the development of tourism in Bulgaria. The memo is an answer to the continuing attempts for overdevelopment of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and mountains and puts a focus on preserving nature and cultural heritage as a priority for the future development of Bulgarian tourism.

 The initiative for the document did not come from environmentalists but from the tourism industry itself because "there is no tourism without preserved nature and cultural heritage."

"This is a brave attempt to protect tourism, to protect nature as well as cultural and historical values​​,” says Stoyan Lazarov, chairman of the Bulgarian Tourist Chamber. The memo is a bold step to counter political and oligarchic structures in tourism. We all feel a commitment to preserving nature and cultural heritage for the prosperity of tourism."

Dimitar Popov, a member of the Association of Bulgarian Tour Operators and Travel Agents, says the memorandum comes with at least 15 years of delay. According to him, one of the main problems is overcapacity of hotels.

"As a result, Bulgaria has the lowest average occupancy rate perhaps in Europe and the lowest incomes from hotel beds. We have destroyed family tourism. Once Bulgaria used to offer much better conditions for family vacations than the coast of northern Greece and the Chalkidiki peninsula. We exchanged family tourism for young people with less money who also bring more problems. Why did that happen? Sunny Beach once used to accommodate 36,000 people. Now hotel beds reach half a million. Meanwhile, Bulgaria has also destroyed its camping tourism, which in its modern form can actually be very profitable.”

Among the problems of the extensive pattern of development of Bulgarian tourism is the construction of new hotels without opportunities to attract tourists there.

Here is what Mr. Popov told us about plans for 20,000 new hotel beds in the area of Karadere on the Black Sea coast.

"Speaking from the perspective of a tour operator I can tell you that in order to have profit from such a hotel base, the investor should make sure to attract enough tourists. If a tourist spends averagely 5 nights, in order to reach 30% average occupancy annually, which is the minimum if you want to make money from your investments, you need to attract 300,000 new tourists to go just in Karadere. How come this happen? I'll tell you that a charter company could bring 1200-1500 tourists for the whole summer. Such investment intentions like that in Karadere are sheer madness.”

Bulgaria is not a big country and opportunities for intensive development are limited.

"In Bansko and Pamporovo we used to have tourists who go on walking tours and still spend a week in the mountain resorts. After overdevelopment took place tourists mostly stay for a couple of nights. We just cannot make our mountains and beaches bigger. Pirin will never become the Alps because it is a small mountain. "
 
Experts who signed the memo see huge potential for the development of alternative forms of tourism - cultural, historical, rural, eco, spa, wine, extreme, etc. That's where they think the competitive advantage of Bulgaria lies. These are forms of recreation for which there are resources on the entire territory of the country and during all seasons. This tourism also brings much more incomes, which are more evenly distributed across various regions of the country.

"In these types of tourism tourists do not spend their money in the hotel of the foreign investor but actually travel across Bulgaria. These tourissts actually spend more money but do it in various places, thus supporting different communities and businesses, says Kyril Kaloianov of the Bulgarian Association for Alternative Tourism. "

Thoma Belev of the "Green Balkans" points out an important fact:

"Trading in real estate in Byulgarian resorts does not mean tourism development. A beach has certain capacity. If we filled the capacity with 2000 apartments, occupied by 4 people averagely, there would be no tourism. Profits are good but they go just to the construction entrepreneur.”

English: Alexander Markov