In high season: Mostly party tourists and families with children in Bulgaria

At the peak of the tourist season, the equation is not optimistic for hoteliers. According to their calculations, there are fewer tourists compared to the pre-pandemic 2019. "All-inclusive” remains the preferred form of holiday.

In high season, Bulgarian resorts are mostly visited by young families with children and party tourists looking for an active nightlife, but a new type of tourists is also emerging.

"Bulgarian guestworkers who have been living in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany for years and they got used to our product here in recent years, come, combine holidays with family reunions. These are people with a lot of financial possibilities, they usually book in better quality hotels," says Stoyan Marinov from the Varna Tourist Chamber.

"The main segment of tourists are from Bulgaria and Romania, with an increased share of those from Central Europe, mainly Poland and the Czech Republic," says hotelier Ventsislav Tanchev.

"We have tourists signing up for day trips - inland, to cultural sites for evening events. But we definitely have to say that the budget of tourists, not only in Bulgaria but also in European terms, is more compressed in terms of availability and in terms of willingness to consume and to spend money," said tour operator Ivan Groshev.

The choice of the place of stay of tourists from Bulgaria and abroad is different.

Hoteliers say the news of the collapsed dam at Nova Kakhovka has had a negative impact.

"There are no cancellations, we have to say that, but unfortunately it has affected new bookings to fill the remaining vacancies," said Stoyan Marinov from the Varna Tourist Chamber.

The industry pointed out that this summer German tourists to the Northern Black Sea coast are about 40% less compared to the last year before the pandemic - 2019. Overall, the expected drop for the season is about 25%.