80% fewer tourists have spent their summer holidays in Bulgaria due to the coronavirus epidemic, and 30% of the staff in the tourism industry have lost their jobs, these are the figures presented by Polina Karastoyanova, Executive Director of the National Board of Tourism in an interview for Nova TV.

She added that bankruptcies are a distinct possibility and that it may well be impossible to service credits.

“At some point it may well turn out that banks will own tourism and that is a very bleak prospect,” Polina Karastoyanova commented, and added that after Covid-19 the tourist sector, as we know it, can no longer exist.

“The state must enter the industry as investor and set down master plans for the development of the infrastructure leading up to the tourist facilities,” Polina Karastoyanova said.