site.btaTourists Show "Huge Interest" in 120th Rose Festival in Kazanlak

There is a huge interest in this year's 120th Rose Festival in Kazanlak from tourists, the municipal administration told BTA. However, there has been a decline in the number of Chinese tourists, and in the past 12 months the most tourists were from Romania, France, Turkiye, Italy, Spain, Belgium and the UK.

The Kazanlak Municipality said that places in local hotels for the Rose Festival were booked as early as during its previous edition in May and June last year. According to hoteliers, the bed base for the culminating days of the festival on June 2, 3 and 4 was almost completely filled at the beginning of this year.

A BTA reporter's check revealed that the hotels in Kazanlak municipality are currently fully booked. The situation is similar at the Stara Zagora baths, and there are still vacancies in the regional town.

In May the occupancy rate of the hotels, members of the Association of Hoteliers and Restaurateurs – Stara Zagora, in Stara Zagora district was 45%, as reported to BTA by the chair of the organization Veni Petrova. According to her, this is about 5% more compared to the same period of 2019, which is the last full year before the COVID pandemic, she clarified. According to Petrova, in the last days of May and the first days of June, the occupancy rate of the bed base in Stara Zagora will reach 70-80%. The reason for this is the culmination of the 120th anniversary of the Rose Festival in Kazanlak, as well as the XXII Middle European Buiatric Congress of veterinarians, specialists in diseases of large and small ruminants, hosted by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Trakia University.

According to the National Statistical Institute, in May there were just over 60 accommodation establishments with more than 10 beds - hotels, motels, chalets and other short-term accommodation. The number of rooms in them exceeded 2,500 and the number of beds - 5,000.