TOURISM BAROMETER: New thinking on spa tourism in Bulgaria

HILTON APPOINTMENT: Hilton Sofia announced on June 9 the appointment of Markus Fritz to the position of director of operations, replacing Uwe Kunz, who will take over the same post at the Hilton Warsaw Hotel and Convention Centre, to be opened in November 2006. Before coming to Bulgaria, Fritz, 32, of Austrian origin, was front desk manager at the Hilton Vienna, Austria’s largest congress hotel with 579 rooms and suites. Fritz enjoys working in a customer-oriented environment, has strong operational and organisational skills and, in particular, the capability to look at alternative methods of customer service to meet the growing demands of a versatile hospitality market, Hilton Sofia said in a statement. Four Bulgarian sector organisations in the field of spa tourism have initiated steps towards uniting their efforts to advertise the alternative leisure activity.

The Bulgarian Hydrotherapy Tourism Association, the National Association of Balneology and Tourism, the National Association for Spa Tourism and the National Hydrotherapy Tourism Federation signed a co-operation memorandum on June 9.

According to State Agency on Tourism chair Mario al-Djebouri, who attended the meeting in the Rhodope town of Devin, the top priority of this memorandum is to prepare the spa and hydrotherapy sector for institution of a single balneology and spa tourism organisation.

The four associations decided to set up a co-ordinating council to draft the constituent documents on establishment of a single association. The memorandum also provides for the development and proposal of new standards and star rating in hydrotherapy and spa tourism.

Al-Djebouri sees this as an example to the entire sector of tourism associations pooling their efforts to protect the interest of their product, to develop it further and become a full-fledged partner of the state.

“The development of the spa and hydrotherapy sub-sectors can attract upper-market tourists and eliminate the seasonality of Bulgaria as a holiday destination,” he said.

Al-Djebouri said that tourist advertising requires at least 15-20 million leva annually. In his opinion, the state must allocate more funds than it has been doing so far to promote the country as a travel destination.

The total budget for advertising, participation in international exhibitions and maintenance of the agency was now 6.2 million leva, he said.

Al-Djebouri said that, for the time being, he did not see a possibility of the tourism sector forming a single organisation.

The signing of the memorandum in Devin brought investors and experts of the spa and hydrotherapy sector together for the first time, according to spa hotel-chain owner Stefan Sharlopov. He counted more than 70 standards-compliant spa centres in Bulgaria.

“One of the problems in this sector is the emergence of a number of resorts purporting to provide spa services without conforming to the requirements and the standards in this sphere,” he said.

“Whoever buys a jacuzzi posts up a ‘Spa Centre’ sign, which misleads tourists,” Sharlopov said.

Bulgaria’s spa resorts are already popular all over Europe and in other parts of the world and are known for being located in very favourable climatic regions, affording the exceptional possibility of combining balneology with climatic treatment.

The country’s mineral waters are known for their greatly varied chemical composition and, respectively, their mineralisation and type of dissolved mineral salts, curative gases and biologically active micro components. In fact, every kind of known mineral water may be found in Bulgaria.

This enormous wealth of natural factors, combined with country’s modern hotels and spa facilities, provide excellent possibilities for the year-round effective treatment of the most widespread diseases and make Bulgaria a country of health.

The best-known inland spa resorts are Sandanski, Velingrad, Hissarya and Kyustendil. In addition, most of the Black Sea resorts also offer facilities and options for spa and balneology tourism.



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