The tourist branch in Bulgaria is now expecting the most significant event in the sphere – the 32^nd HOLIDAY&SPA EXPO International Tourist Fair 2015, which will take place in Sofia. This year’s edition will gather tour operators, branch organizations and state administration’s representatives, along with dozens of thousands of visitors. HOLIDAY&SPA EXPO 2015 will be held on February 12 – 14 at Inter Expo Center under the slogan Everything Is Tourism.

In the course of three intense and full of events days, tourist branch representatives will advertise their holiday offers here and abroad, will contract the summer season and will discuss current issues. There will be around 250 exhibitors from 21 states at HOLIDAY&SPA EXPO 2015. Now it is the time for a person to pick up a destination for spring and summer vacations, no matter how hard it is to find it in an ocean of tempting offers. Bulgarian and foreign tour operators will once again decoy with early bookings at foxy prices. Greek and Turkish tour operators mark a record-high participation this year, which is no surprise. The neighboring Balkan states have recently turned into a holiday destination, wanted by the Bulgarians thanks to their fierce advertising policy and inexpensive promo packages. Thus they attract more and more fans. The fears of Bulgarian tourism are deepening, as the summer season gets closer with a serious reflux of Russian and Ukrainian tourists expected. How should we compensate this outflow? Then how about the problems, related to bad infrastructure and the disastrous roads, leading to landmarks? There are also issues in the agenda, related to the overdevelopment of the resorts and their turning into something similar to a huge concrete ghetto. Bulgaria’s alcohol tourist destination image should be overcome too. A whole series of round tables and workshops within the frameworks of HOLIDAY&SPA EXPO 2015 will tackle these matters. Representatives of branch organizations and the clerks from the newly created ministry of tourism will take part in those. This state’s priorities for the sector’s development will be also discussed. The most urgent one is the compensation of the tourist reflux over the forthcoming summer season – the Bulgarian tourists and the guests from neighbouring Balkan countries are to do this, with the recent encouraging growth in the number of the latter. Thus our neighbours might turn out to be not only competition, but also our reliable partners. Chair of the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association Blagoy Ragin tells us how it is possible:

“Our motto is: We are Strong Together. We will have a roundtable with our Bulgarian colleagues to tune and to show how we will advertise across distant markets. Cultural tourism’s development is a priority not only to us, but to our neighbors as well. We join our efforts with the idea to win with our common product markets like China, India, the USA, as it is really hard to do it individually. Our sea hotel owners will be very active at this edition as an anti-crisis measure, as far as Bulgarian tourists and neighboring guests are concerned. The event is a good occasion to look for ways to attract more tourists from Central Europe too, along with other hotel owners from the Balkans. This is the only way we can save the forthcoming summer season…”

English version: Zhivko Stanchev