TOURISM BAROMETER: Bulgaria opens summer season 2007

A solemn ceremony held on March 25 marked the beginning of the tourist season for Bulgaria’s southern Black Sea coast.

The ceremony was held at the airport in the city of Burgas, minutes before the arrival of the first tourists from Denmark who will spend two weeks in Nessebar, near the Slunchev Bryag resort. The predictions are for Burgas airport to welcome charter flights mainly from Germany, England, Poland, Israel and the Scandinavian countries.

It seems that this year, tourists visiting Slunchev Bryag will have to deal with the same challenges as last year. Construction is booming and until May 1 construction companies will have every right to work on the sites, disregarding the comfort of the visitors.

This means that the first 39 Israeli tourists who opened the season for Slunchev Bryag on March 25 will have to put up with the noise, debris, mud and dust for at least a month.

In order to avoid negative “thank you letters” after the season closes and negative publications in foreign media, as happened last year, Bulgarian tour operators have prepared this time. According to tourist companies, this year tourists have been warned about the about the conditions in the resort and were compensated with lower prices and huge discounts.

Discounts have worked well for air carriers as well.

Following the trend in the Bulgarian tourist sector and its rapid development, air carriers are in the race for opening new flight destinations to and from Burgas. Low-cost carrier Germanwings has announced that it is offering promotional return air fares of 47 to 97 euro (including airport fees) for its new Sofia-Cologne route from March 26. Passengers will be eligible for hotels rates of 29 euro a night in Cologne, Berlin or Dusseldorf. The carrier will launch flights from Berlin to the Black Sea cities Burgas and Varna from mid-May.

Next was Austrian Airlines, who announced promotional fares for its flights from Vienna to Bourgas and Varna if seats are booked 21 days in advance.

Among the other air carriers servicing the Black Sea and offering tempting fares are the low-cost Wizz Air and MyAir. For comparison, a one-way British Airways ticket from Sofia to London is 108 euro. BA’s summer offer is the launch of a new morning flight from Sofia to London’s Gatwick. The flight will be serviced every Sunday from the beginning of April with departure scheduled for 6.45am. Last year, BA started five early-hours flights from Varna and Sofia to Gatwick to cope with the heavy summer schedule.

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