Rescuing Bulgaria’s Winter Tourism

It will be up to Bulgarians themselves to salvage the winter tourist season, similar to what happened this summer, operators have warned.

According to Novinite, charter flights from Russia to Bulgaria for Christmas and New Year have already been canceled because of problems with issuing Bulgarian visas to Russian citizens, Donka Sokolova, chairwoman of the Bulgarian Association of Tourist Agencies (BATA), announced on Monday.

There is a serious risk of a collapse of the winter holiday season if this problem is not overcome, she commented.

The basic cost of a visa for a Russian citizen is EUR 35, but the total increases by EUR 12 to EUR 47 once the handling charges of the visa centers of the Indian company VFS Global are added.

The outsourcing company, with which the Bulgarian Embassy in Moscow signed an agreement in November 2008, operates as a courier service - they only deliver the visa documents to consulates. This does not facilitate the entire process of issuing visas but merely adds to the cost, commented Sokolova.

She said that BATA is going to meet with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), to discuss yet again the issue of whether to continue the Bulgarian contract with VFS Global.

“Due to these problems with visas, we can expect a fall in the number of tourists from Russia, and that is one of our main tourist markets,” Sokolova concluded.

She further predicted a 10% drop in the numbers of British visitors.

“Our hopes were that this decline in the British market would be offset by Russian visitors, but evidently this will not now happen,” she stated.

The BATA chair added that at least there were not yet any British flight cancellations.

The sector is also worried by the effects of the swine flu epidemic on bookings for winter vacations, but, Soklova commented that “it was a good sign that at the World Travel Market (WTM) tourist expo in London, held last week, there wasn't a single person wearing a mask.”