site.btaTurkish Daily Milliyet Dedicates Supplement to Bulgarian Winter Resort of Bansko

The Turkish daily Milliyet is offering its readers a special 32-page supplement dedicated to the Bulgarian winter resort of Bansko for free. The editor-in-chief of the publication is Ismail Sahin, whose time at the University of Economics in Varna helped him to learn Bulgarian.

Sahin told BTA: "Bansko, Bulgaria's most famous ski resort, has become an alternative for Turkish tourists from Istanbul and surrounding areas after the tragedy of the fire in Kartalkaya, the closest ski resort to Istanbul, which claimed the lives of 78 people and injured dozens. The subsequent changes in hotel building safety regulations led to the closure of 60% of the facilities in the Uludag winter resort near Bursa. With its 75 kilometres of slopes, Bansko is well known to Turkish tourists, who are among the leading foreign visitors during the winter season. its thermal springs, hiking trails in Pirin Mountain, festivals, cultural and historical attractions, and gastronomy are not well known to Turks. I wanted to draw attention to all of this. Around 1.5 million people in Turkiye spend their vacation in high mountain areas during the summer. Why not go to Bansko?".

Milliyet received support for the Bansko supplement from the Bulgarian Ministry of Tourism, as well as from the municipalities of Bansko and Razlog.

The Turkish journalist also shared that he took the opportunity to introduce Vice President Iliana Iotova to the supplement during Iotova's visit to the St Stephen Bulgarian Orthodox Church in Istanbul on December 27. He added: "In our brief conversation after the service at the Church of St Stephen, Ms Iotova expressed her satisfaction with the development of relations between Turkiye and Bulgaria in the field of tourism. She emphasized that Bulgaria, which is a small country but has many beautiful tourist areas, wants Turkish tourists to get to know them and leave Bulgaria satisfied."

The supplement features headlines such as "The well-known Bulgarian town of Bansko", "The most accessible winter resort for Turkish tourists", "International quality standard", "History, traditions, and unforgettable experiences", and "A spa town nestled between three beautiful mountains".