site.btaSPA Tourism Expert Points to "Challenging Season", with Decline in Key Markets

The Turkish market is very important, so the news about easing the visa regime for Turkish citizens is expected and positive. "However, I don’t know how you will motivate the Foreign Ministry to start working on this," Zhivko Ivanov, Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Union of Balneology and SPA Tourism, said on Saturday during an off-site session of the parliamentary Tourism Committee in Sozopol. He added that workers from third countries, announced back in October last year, have still not arrived in Bulgaria, "and the season is already underway – next week is August."

Ivanov expressed doubts about the forecasts for a strong summer season. “I do not share the optimistic assessment of colleagues from the National Tourism Board. The season is difficult, there is a decline in key markets. I exclude the UK and partly Poland and the Czech Republic. There is a drop in the Romanian market and many others – compared to last year, not even the pre-pandemic period. This is something that needs to be worked on,” Ivanov noted. According to him, details about next year’s flight programs are already clear. “We see that the number of planned seats is equal to this year’s. This means that charter programs need to be strengthened,” said Ivanov.