After years in which the ruling circles have been unable to define policies and strategies for tourism development, although they have always qualified the sector as a national priority, the Cabinet will now once again try to build a new image of the country. For this purpose in 2012 it will spend nearly BGN23 million – by four million more than the money allocated in 2011. About BGN15 million of them will come under Regional Development OP and the rest will be provided from the budget of the Ministry of Economy and Energy. The funds will go to arranging display stands, videos, brochures and other informational materials, which are targeted at persuading foreigners to spend their holidays in Bulgaria and not somewhere else for example.
A brief glimpse at the plans of rulers show that once again they rely on worn-out cliches and bland slogans. The leading message in the advertising campaign for the European market will be Bulgaria – a fashionable destination in all seasons. Which may have come to suggest that if elsewhere it is suitable to go a certain season, Bulgaria is attractive at all times. And modern. Either way, the economy ministry has announced a tender for the production of a series of promotional films for our country as an attractive year-round tourist destination. Its combined value is BGN660 thousand, and the period for implementation – seven months, which means that the videos will be available in mid-summer.
Particularly in Asia, America, the Middle East the promotion campaign will use the all to well known ad types used also by Montenegro, Croatia and Turkey in the style Discover Bulgaria. For The Chinese and Arabs there will be another clip, which shows nice beaches, ski slopes and cultural attractions – where exactly they are, and nobody can understand from the videos.
The country will be intensively promoted as cultural, spa, and wellness centre. This is generally okay as long as all the hotels that have pinned to them this label really offer such services. Unfortunately, behind the big sign SPA in our country often stands for a whirlpool, while the balneological aspect is limited to the available mineral spring.
Representatives of the ministry further explain that the promotion of tourism in the coming year we will not focus only on competitive prices, but will also on the value to the users. What in fact this should mean is maybe not entirely clear even to those who formulated the phrase. Rather, particular attention is paid to modern media channels where the ads will be placed, its web marketing, social networks, high technology means and the new tourism portal bulgariatravel.org. What is the effect of the first three tools is yet to be seen, but the usefulness of site seems only obvious for companies that have created it. Initially, for its development were spent BGN2 million, although a similar product, according to IT professionals can cost no more than a few hundred thousand. And once it became clear that the page mislead tourists with absurd errors about locations, officials decided to seek a new company to fix things. They found it in the face of Bulgaria Travel 2010 – a union which includes Planing Media Group, Siensis, Brothers Screen, which was paid BGN1.46 million excluding VAT. On top of that another tender was announced, this time for BGN3.58 million VAT included for selecting a company to promote the site www.bulgariatravel.org. The money is provided under the Regional Development Operational Programme.
Along with spending on advertising, a working group on marketing and advertising will be established at the National Tourism Council. The idea is for it to have an advisory role and assist the ministry in economic decision making to promote tourism in Bulgaria. An important detail is that this group will include representatives of business.
Whatever the rulers may think, however, the truth is that chaos reigns in the sector, everything is done independently of the whole picture, and the development strategies are always moving from one to another extreme. The accents first were on Bulgaria for the mass tourist, then For wealthy tourists, changed to SPA Centres, Cultural Tourism, and Rural Tourism until it finally reached the Year-round destination. At the same time, the lack of a clear goal on which to focus efforts of the tourism promotion practically redners senseless the entire spending as well as the creation of working groups or any reforms.
Every year Bulgaria is advertise in a different way to the world and quite normally it isn’t as recognizable as Turkey or Greece for example. If one adds that the starts of local hotels sometimes do not correspond to the quality of the service they have to offer, and the well known principle in resorts to ask exorbitant prices for nothing, it will become clear that nobody should expect substantial progress in this field.
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From January to October 2011, Bulgaria was visited by 5.8 million foreign guests, up 4.4 percent over the same period of 2010. Most guests were from Greece – 842,318 people, an increase of 5.5 per cent. Followed by Romanians (840 thousand), Germans (679.8 thousand), Russians (435 thousand) and Macedonians (317.8 thousand).
The revenue from international tourism for the first nine months of the year were 2.5 billion – an increase of 3.7 percent year-on-year. Funds spend by Bulgarian citizens to travel abroad accounted to BGN749.1 million, or 3.4% more than the corresponding period of 2010.
