10.4.2007

TOURISTS FROM AUSTRALIA TO RUSSIA VISIT BULGARIA

A new Bulgarian package offered by an Australian tourist agency was featured on Australian tourist website e-Travel Blackboard on March 30.

According to the website, which quotes a story from Tempo Holidays, customers who have been to many of the mainstream western parts of Europe and are still searching for off-the-beaten track experiences are looking to Bulgaria. It quotes a senior Tempo Holidays officer saying that Bulgaria was “yet to become a popular tourist destination for Australians, and today’s travellers would see it while it was still preserved”. He recommends an itinerary including Sofia, “without the summer crowds of other European destinations”, and Bulgaria’s historic monasteries.

The company has set five departures between May 12 and September 1 for its seven-day Best of Bulgaria tour, which explores the country’s ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine sites, the capital Sofia, Orthodox monasteries, rural villages and expansive farmlands and forests.

On the other side of the world, Bulgaria’s tourist product was presented to four well-off regions in Russia, BTA reported on April 2.
The Bulgarian Industry Centre in Moscow has been taking an active part in a campaign promoting Bulgaria’s tourist attractions in the regions of Samara, Tyumen, Omsk and the capital city of the Tatarstan Republic, Kazan. The 10-day campaign was organised by Tour Business journal in co-operation with travel agents and national tourist representatives of several other countries. The two chief experts of the Bulgarian Industry Centre, Valentin Petrov and Stefko Mihov, travelled more than 12 000km for the event, a follow-up of the national campaign of the Bulgarian State Agency for Tourism on the Russian market headlined Bulgaria: Modern Tourist Destination Year-Round. In Samara, the Bulgarian stand was visited by 47 companies, as was the situation in Tyumen, in Kazan, by 45 and in Omsk, by 73.
The interest in Bulgaria as a tourist destination is growing and the trend is expected to persist in the next three years, Bulgarian representatives said. Interest towards Bulgaria is also growing among countries near to or neighbouring Bulgaria. Twenty thousand Romanians will visit Bulgaria at Easter, Chairwoman of the State Agency for Tourism Anelia Kroushkova told a news conference, quoted by Focus news agency on March 29.

One of the main reasons for the growing interest towards Bulgaria from neighbouring countries is Bulgaria’s recent EU accession. Travelling has become much easier, with only ID cards necessary to enter Bulgaria for Greeks and Romanians, as well as easing of the visa-acquiring process for Serbians, Macedonians and Turks.