The cost of one New Year offer at an elite hotel in the spa resort of Velingrad is… 11,500 Leva (EUR 5,868). The package for such an exorbitant price caused quite a stir in the media, yet they say it is selling like hot cakes, along with some other four- and five-digit packages offered by the same hotel. Its owners said the package costing close to 12,000 Leva was for 4 nights in a 200 sq. m. VIP suite, a lavish festive dinner with a diverse programme, including fireworks, children’s animation, spa procedures etc.

“That is a good thing, a very good thing,” commented tourism expert Konstantin Zankov. “It shows there is a market for deluxe tourism and for expensive high-quality services in Bulgaria, and that is something Bulgarian tourism has been aspiring to, because it wants to get away from its low-budget image. The fact that this hotel in Velingrad sold out its rooms so quickly, at a price equaling the price of a package in Dubai, Singapore etc., is, to my mind, positive and laudable for the industry. On the whole, bookings for the New Year are going well.”

According to data of the Institute for Analysis and Assessment in Tourism, around half a million Bulgarians are set to travel during the festive season, and 70,000 foreigners will come to Bulgaria. However, most will not be coming to the country to celebrate Christmas and the New Year, they will be coming here to ski. Where will they spend their holiday?

“Borovets, Bansko, the winter resorts, as it is cheaper for them than it would be if they travelled to the Alps and Western Europe. Foreigners come here because we are still a low-cost destination, and interest is high, mostly from groups from the UK. But for Christmas and the New Year we don’t have reservations because foreigners mostly want to come for the Christmas bazaars, which, here, are far from the European standard,” says Anton Dyankov from a leading travel agency.

What has now changed is that for the first time since the pre-pandemic year of 2019, Bulgarians are booking their holidays very early on, even in summer. The first to fill up are the small family hotels with a typical Bulgarian atmosphere and traditional food. 

It is now next to impossible to find any vacancies there. And if you want to ring the New Year in abroad, then you have no time to waste, tour operators say. “Most of our packages are sold out. People are mostly interested in destinations that are close by like Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Antalya, Egypt and Tunisia, but there is also interest in exotic destinations like Mauritius, which, alongside the Maldives and Thailand is also sold out,” says Adriana Parichkova from a leading Sofia travel agency.  

This year’s “hit” is a family package to Lapland, starting at 3,000 Leva (a little over EUR 1,500) for 5 nights, getting to meet Father Christmas, a visit to his husky farm etc. 

The economic crisis and the inflation have pushed the price of the packages up by 10-20%, but nobody seems to care, Adriana says.

“After coronavirus people are travelling again. And as travel to most destinations does not require PCR tests or anything like that, they opted to travel abroad because some offers inside Bulgaria are really expensive – and I mean resorts like Velingrad, Sandanski, Bansko. After the pandemic people now seem to be less fearful. Some take out travel cancellation insurance, but on the whole they are less worried, and we have started on the reservations for next summer,” Adriana Parichkova says.

• Tourism business expects "hot" winter season combined with unrelenting inflation