Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
same time they often complain about service
and infrastructure quality, bureaucratic prac-
tices and poor information provision (Holiday-
Truth.com, 2005).
Black Sea coast, but also increasingly cheap
packages to ski resorts. There is considerable
potential for various types of tourism inside the
country which are little promoted and practi-
cally unknown to the wider European public.
One of the strengths of Bulgaria on the tourism
market is that it offers holidays in less congested
resorts, but the recent building boom in the
resorts that are becoming too urbanized and
lacking in coherent planning is a major chal-
lenge to Bulgaria's sustainability as a tourism
destination.
For Bulgaria there is no alternative to
development, further restructuring and the
rejuvenation of its tourism industry to adapt to
the EU market environment and to provide a
greater variety and higher quality of tourism
services. Priority should be given to the training
and retraining of those professionally involved
in a sector that expects 20,000 new jobs to be
created annually.
Such expectations will become reality
only if the existing serious problems are
adequately addressed and alleviated. Particu-
lar attention should be given to the promotion
of the country, which at the moment is practi-
cally non-existent. Ecological issues, for exam-
ple, the grave problem of pollution in the Black
Sea (practically a closed basin), can be solved
only in the framework of broad international
cooperation led by the European Union.
Conclusion
Bulgaria had been expected to accede to the
EU at the beginning of 2007, and this objective
had already brought a profound and positive
impact on the country as a whole, and espe-
cially on the nature and extent of its inter-
national tourism both inbound and outbound.
However, by the time this chapter was being
submitted, doubts were beginning to be raised
concerning the realism of the 2007 date. This
was constraining foreign interest in property
purchase and also possibly the rate of foreign
investment. None the less, the EU share of
Bulgarian tourism will grow, and after accession
the pace could accelerate further. Bulgaria is
already firmly in the EU tourism market and this
trend will intensify. It is perceived as a hospi-
table and calm country with a Mediterranean
style of living and is not associated with terrorist
threats, although after becoming a NATO mem-
ber in 2003 and having sent a detachment to
Iraq, this could change.
In Western Europe, Bulgaria is associated
with all-inclusive summer package tours to the
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