Bulgaria is sending off the summer tourist season with an increase in foreign visitors, but behind the overall figures are serious changes – both in the tourist markets and in the structure of the tourist product. September is shaping up to be a particularly strong month, and more and more tourists from the EU are choosing Bulgaria outside the traditional peak months. At the same time, the shortage of personnel continues to change the face of Bulgarian tourism, with hotels increasingly relying on workers from third countries. How is the tourist flow changing, why are low-cost airlines so important for markets such as Poland, Italy and Spain, does Bulgaria remain price-competitive with Greece and Turkey and can Eurovision in Burgas help extend the season? Prof. Rumen Draganov, director of the Institute for Analysis and Evaluation in Tourism, spoke to FACTI.
– Professor Draganov, we can now take stock of the summer season. By the end of August, Bulgaria welcomed about 9.7 million foreign tourists, which is an increase compared to last year. Does this mean that we can define the season as successful, or are there differences in the overall growth between individual regions and tourist markets?
– We can now add to this statistics the month of September, with 9.825 million foreigners entering the country. We are moving somewhere around 125 thousand, which is about 1.25% more tourists compared to 2025. Overall, I think Bulgaria is showing some stability in its tourism.
Of course, this was also one of the hardest years I remember, in terms of an unprecedented negative advertising campaign, mainly on social networks, and it was based on the introduction of the euro and the expectation of price increases throughout the country, including tourist services.
But I dare say that we saw a fairly calm tourist season, which developed smoothly, as always. The off-season months – May and June, generally very weak in terms of tourism, but this was also the case in previous years, because from July 1, over 740 thousand students who are on vacation, their parents, who are about a million and a half, and their grandparents, who are a little over 2 million, can now travel in the country.
That is, we have over 4.5 million people who can move freely after July 1, not only in our country, but also abroad. And we observe this very clearly in the occupancy of hotels, because we see that the occupancy of hotels starts from July 15 and is very strong until September 12-13, before the start of the school year, which is absolutely logical.
But this year we are observing a phenomenon - a very strong month of September. Many tourists who took advantage of the good weather, and mostly they are foreigners from the countries of the European Union. And right now I am in Albena and I see hotels full of foreign visitors.
– Did only the good weather and many sunny days help us talk about such a season?
– I would not say so, because those who are now on vacation here have organized their vacation even in some cases a year earlier. That is, good word-of-mouth advertising. People are telling each other how profitable it is to be in Bulgaria in the fall. What I am observing now in Bulgaria is that it is about families with small children, with strollers, but also about people of this age, the so-called “young at heart“, over 55 years old.
– We often make comparisons with the years before COVID. Have we managed to get back this tourist flow that visited Bulgaria, for example in 2019? Are we returning to the same levels?
– We have long exceeded the levels that were the year before and during COVID. In 2019, 12 million 255 thousand foreign visitors entered the country, and last year 13 million 608 thousand entered. We are over a million and a half more than we were in 2019.
But this does not apply to every hotel in the country, because we see that there are hotels that for some reason cannot provide quality service, a quality tourist product, and accordingly they are not in demand.
At the same time, we see a strong increase in tourists from Poland, from Italy, from Spain. This is due to the fact that low-cost companies simply opened new destinations. In general, tourism is extremely dependent on connectivity, on air flights, and we see that those airports where low-cost airline planes are based have a demand that is no less than 5%, while Sofia Airport will grow by about 9% annually.
– The prices on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, which you already mentioned, were one of the main topics, but does Bulgaria remain competitive in terms of price compared to Greece and Turkey - countries that have very strong tourism and are our competitors?
– We absolutely remain an extremely pleasant tourist destination in terms of price. We have heard comments about how expensive Bulgaria has become, but world rankings put us in last or penultimate place in terms of prices.
We move between first and sixth place in various types of tourist rankings - whether it is for a resort, a city or the country that offers a tourist product as a whole.
At the moment, only Portugal and Bosnia and Herzegovina are cheaper than us. We are at the level of Romania and Albania in terms of prices.
And I will give an example right away. When the English give a price for a dinner for two, with a bottle of house wine, in Bulgaria it costs about 85 euros, in Greece it is 104 euros. If we talk about Switzerland, Spain or Norway, which is at the top, there it is about 234 euros.
We cannot overtake the world, since it is not slow either, but moves. If someone thinks that prices in the world are the same, they are wrong. There is an increase in prices everywhere, and it is also based on quality, and quality is determined by the audience and interest.
The one who has set a higher price, this is not because he wants to drive away his clientele, but because he wants to provide conditions and create satisfied customers.
If your price is low and there is a queue, people get disappointed. The price is a tool through which the pressure on what you produce can be regulated. And with the price you reduce the queue and create satisfied tourists.
There is no point in maintaining a low price and people being unhappy about waiting in line or not being able to benefit from your product.
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– In many hotels by the sea we already see staff who are from third countries outside the European Union. We do not have many Bulgarians. Is this the trend that is being noticed? And accordingly, do these people who come from third countries provide the necessary quality that the hotel in question that hired them offers?
– Overall, I can say that this is an extremely good decision, because it gives a very clear idea that we have a quality tourist product.
I visited several hotels this summer, in which I saw that they were served by foreign staff - both at the reception, and in the restaurant, and as room attendants. And I can say that I feel like anywhere in the world.
Because when you go somewhere abroad, in any hotel, when you check in, you will see the same picture and the same people who are from third world countries. And they are precisely in this part - service staff. Of course, there are those who are in top management. But we have a shortage of staff in the service part.
– And are we managing to keep them so that they are not in Bulgaria for just one season?
– I have spoken to such people in several hotels and they tell me that they are for the third or fourth year.
The contract process is currently underway with countries such as Indonesia. I recently met with their representative. There is a lot of interest from these countries in Bulgaria. Both from our side, from the restaurateurs who are looking there, and from their staff who are looking at the opportunity to come and work in Bulgaria. Most often, Indonesians are supplied by Romanian companies in Bulgaria.
– You often talk about cultural tourism as a way and opportunity to fill the months of May and June, and next year we are hosting Eurovision in Burgas. What do you expect?
– I expect Eurovision to give a significant boost to the development of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast as a whole. This was the reason I commented months ago on the need for Burgas to win Eurovision. And I am extremely pleased that this happened, because this will give a huge boost to the Black Sea coast.
We always talk about extending the season, but we don't realize what responsibility it means to start and open the hotel in May, restaurants, umbrellas, to create services, to create an atmosphere for tourists so that they are satisfied.
And now, with the hosting of Eurovision, this very opportunity opens up for us, because in May a very significant part of the hotels and restaurants and beaches on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast around Burgas should be open.
It is very good that the Ministry of Tourism, and in the person of Ilin Dimitrov, have committed themselves to a major preparation and campaign for the things that we will start immediately after Eurovision. The German company TUI will also participate, and in this regard, I expect the month of May to be extremely strong in terms of the arrival of tourists from Germany.
And all of this will be an example of how we should expand the season – with what products, with what tourists to expect.
I also expect that we will have very strong development in terms of animation, because people expect to have fun in Bulgaria.
For me, the presence of cultural tourism on the Black Sea coast, which has lagged behind extremely far, would be something very positive. Lately, I've been struggling to think of any choirs and dance groups, not just from the towns and villages near the sea, that have performed at the resorts in the summer.
And a friend and I joked that you can't hear the bagpipes on the sea because if someone blows the bagpipes on the boat, the fish will run away, and people don't clap, again so as not to scare the fish away.
There is a lack of culture on the Black Sea coast. But here I must add that perhaps the Albena resort complex is an exception, because there really is such a tradition there that is maintained and that is very popular with everyone who visits the resort.