Bulgaria to Develop Wine Tourism

Balkan Travellers, Jan 04, 2008

Wine makers in southwestern Bulgaria’s Plovdiv region plan to further develop wine tourism as a way to support the wine-making industry in the area and attract tourists.

Though the wine tourism branch continues to grow, in 2007 only 0.6 per cent, or 120,000 people, of the total number of visitors to the country were “wine tourists,” according to data by the regional winemakers’ chamber.

The relatively new market niche attracts mostly foreigner tourists but Bulgarians are starting to take an interest too. Rositsa Kichkova, owner of the Villa Vinifera winery in Brestovitsa which was among the first to develop this type of tourism, says that visitors come from Spain, Italy, Russia and even China to sample the winery’s produce. Their number has grown 100 per cent since the winery started catering to them in 2000.

In addition to the 46 wineries already in place, between 80 and 100 small wineries are now being built in the Plovdiv region. In September of 2008, they will begin producing wine and offering it to tourists, Konstantin Mazdzarov, head of winemakers’ chamber, Trakiya, told national media.

Chamber representatives say that 1,300 small wineries could be built by 2013, but they are complaining of a lack of support by the government. Because tourists take an interest not only in the wine-tasting, but also in the local customs and history, the chamber’s Wine Road project includes building roads to the nearby Thracian burial mounds, as well as to other landmarks of the region.

Though the wineries’ construction could be included in the national programme for rural development, it is yet unclear whether any of the EU funds, around 3 billion euro, set aside for that programme, will go towards supporting the wine tourism project.