site.btaHealth Tourism Can Help Bulgaria Achieve Year-Round Employment, Says President of Bulgarian Union of Balneology, SPA Tourism

Bulgaria should be positioned on the European and world map as a competitive destination for year-round health tourism, Siika Katsarova, President of the Bulgarian Union of Balneology and SPA Tourism, said during the opening of the fourth national conference on health tourism in Burgas on Tuesday.

She emphasized that Tourism Minister Miroslav Borshosh is the one who initiated this plan and that at the beginning of 2025 a working group for the promotion of health tourism in Bulgaria was formed, which includes representatives of the Tourism Ministry, the Health Ministry, as well as a number of non-governmental organizations.

"In general, our goal is to add medical tourism to the portfolio of product types of tourism with which the Tourism Ministry advertises Bulgaria on international markets," Katsarova emphasized, pointing out that it is through this type of tourism that Bulgaria will have the opportunity to achieve year-round employment in all destinations that offer sustainable forms of tourism.

"This goal of ours is also a national cause, because we as Bulgarians are convinced of the quality of our medicine", she stressed, adding that she has enormous respect for the doctors who are in the present at the conference today.

"We also have wonderful equipment in hospitals, which is at a world level. We have very good health clinics and centres, dental clinics, hospitals," Katsarova noted, adding that it is medical tourism that made it possible for destinations such as Germany and Spain not to fully feel the effects of the decline in travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.