Tourism Poll: Tourists Talk About Bulgaria

Sofia News Agency

Alternative tourism is the only way to make Bulgaria a year-round tourist destination and attract visitors outside the active summer and winter season, expert Stoyan Mihaylov, says.

Stoyanov spoke as representative of a company hired by the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism, to carry out a research about attitudes of foreign travelers to SPA, cultural, and rural tourism.

The poll was conducted among 9 000 foreigners, who visited Bulgaria in the summer, but also practiced the above mentioned types of tourism.

Overall results show Bulgaria is attractive to visitors from abroad and they are pretty much satisfied with their vacation, but the majority of the respondents have pointed out poor infrastructure, heavy traffic and lack of adequate information as significant problems.

According to the poll, foreign travels chose culture tourism over Bulgaria's many historical sites, SPA over the affordable prices and rural tourism over the beautiful nature.

Bulgaria's main competitors are, as expected, neighboring Greece, Turkey and Romania, the results showed.

Men prefer culture tourism and nature walks, the latter being also a top choice of younger holidaymakers while women and older people prefer SPA services.

Bulgaria has the most positive image among visitors from Romania, the Ukraine, Serbia and the Czech Republic while those from Sweden, the UK, Germany, Turkey and Greece were satisfied but critical at the same time.

More than half of those polled have already been to Bulgaria before.