It is good that even after a few years in delay, the rulers decided to loosen their purse and start promoting the country as an attractive tourist destination. But even better would be if they think and how to impress foreigners. This spring at the upcoming tourism fairs in Germany, Russia and Ukraine, the country will be presented precisely with the much debated newly introduced logo. The slogan will be Explore and Share instead of the previous Unique and Different and along with the sea and ski vacation resorts, the focus will be directed to the spa tourism, cultural and gourmet tourism.
Along with the controversial in its quality promotion of the country abroad, however, a handful of companies make good profits and so far no one has managed to break their hegemony. It’s about Arch Ltd, Design Expo, Vision Expo, Stroytek and Eurapel Communications who for years have been subscribed to the production of promotional stands for international exhibitions. Which of them will engage in the development of the booths for the upcoming ITB Berlin forums (6-10 March), INTOURMARKET Moscow (16-19 March), MITT Moscow (20-23 March) and UITT Kiev (27-29 March) we will know next week. The budget provided by the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism for equipment was again impressive – nearly 1.2 million levs.
In 2012, for example, the country’s stand at MITT was made by Stroytek owned by Milena Encheva. She 363,000 levs for the job. A sum of 472,000 levs went to Arch Ltd. For the pavilions for exhibitions in Berlin and Kiev. The company was chosen for the World Travel Market in London 2012 – the biggest and most significant event in this area. For this it was paid 290,000 and the interesting thing is that the contract was concluded exactly on November 8, when the forum was opened in the British capital. This means that the stand was made without any document being signed between the line ministry and the contractor. Obviously, both sides have much trust in each other. A year earlier same company, owned equally by Dimitar Gachev Marina Gacheva and Savo Valchev, won orders for the construction of facilities for all these events together, collecting over 1.26 million levs for the job.
Eurapel Communications in partnership with Vision Expo (led by Simona Stoyanova and Rosen Krastev) were the authors of conceptual designs used by the state for all international forums, appearing from 2010 and onwards.
In addition to these international tourism fairs Bulgaria will participate in a number of smaller events where the state also spends significant sums.
The BANKER
