The Bulgarian stages of the Giro d'Italia generated over 28.1 million interactions on social networks and nearly 27 million views of content on the official channels of the race. This is shown by the official report on the media monitoring and digital response of the event, prepared by the technology company Sensika Technologies. The data reports unprecedented success in positioning Bulgaria and Sofia as modern, exciting and attractive tourist destinations.
In the days surrounding the Bulgarian stages, the official Giro d'Italia profiles on the TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X platforms published a total of 499 posts. They caused a huge wave of organic reactions, which generated over 45% of the comments and 44% of the shares in the entire digital stream of the race. Within the framework of this large-scale campaign in our country, the official profile of the Mayor of Sofia Vasil Terziev has established itself as one of the leaders in terms of influence and audience engagement.
In parallel with the records in social networks, the Sensika Technologies report also reports a remarkable scale in traditional media coverage. For the period from August 1, 2025 to May 11, 2026, the total number of materials in electronic media exceeds 17,000 publications. They are distributed as follows:
Bulgarian media: 10,754 materials from 590 sources.
International media: 6,463 materials from 1,640 sources in 87 countries around the world.
An extremely strong emphasis in the analysis is that in international coverage Bulgaria is directly mentioned in the title of nearly 31% of the articles (a total of 1,995 publications), while in the remaining materials our country is mentioned in the first paragraph.
„Bulgaria, you’ve been sensational!“ - nature, culture and shared emotion before the world
According to the report by Sensika Technologies, the image of Bulgaria in the international airwaves has been built through the authentic story of the cities along the route and pure human energy. The special GiroExpress television format acted as an exciting “tourist diary“ - immediately before the cyclists, the broadcast showed millions of viewers the spirit of the cities along the route.
The exceptional hospitality and atmosphere caused the official international profile of the Giro d'Italia to summarize the emotion with the words: “Bulgaria, you’ve been sensational!“.
“Sofia Drift“: World analysts gave a name to the spectacular finale in Sofia, which became the most watched moment of the race
About 250,000 people followed the spectacular finale live on the iconic yellow cobblestones, turning the last kilometers of the race into one of the largest public events in the capital in recent years. In addition to the streets of the city, the capital also attracted huge attention in the digital environment, where the final on the yellow cobblestones ranked among the most watched, most shared and emotional moments of the entire race.
According to Sensika Technologies, the digital story of the city captured the authentic spirit of the capital - from its modern urban pulse to the hit wedding by the track in the village of Dolni Pasarel. The footage from the wedding day appeared in 33 publications from the monitoring and accumulated a record engagement of 6.28 million interactions, nearly 6 million views and more than 15,000 shares.
„This is the true face of our city. The world not only saw beautiful footage from all over the country, but also felt our spirit, our hospitality and our ability to unite around great causes. We proved that when we put our heart into it, Sofia can be a stage for events of the highest global rank. This shows us that the future of our city and country depends solely on the scale of our own dreams. I thank every Sofia resident who became part of this magic“, shares the Mayor of the Sofia Municipality Vasil Terziev.
The results of the media coverage confirm that the Grande Partenza 2026 of the Giro d’Italia gave Sofia and Bulgaria a new type of global self-confidence. This hosting left a lasting digital mark that will continue to attract travelers from all over the world and turned our city and the entire country into a recognizable, hospitable and modern destination on the big European map.