Turkish tour operators interested in Bulgarian resorts

More and more tourists from Turkey want to visit Bulgaria. This is the opinion of tour operators from our southern neighbour that are visiting Varna. Especially for them, an information tour was organised with a visit to resorts for year-round tourism, as well as historical sites on the Black Sea coast.

For many years tourists from Turkey have been visiting mainly Bulgaria’s winter resorts. However, interest in our Black Sea coast is also growing.

"Bulgaria is becoming more and more popular on the Turkish market because it has become saturated with the summer tourism offered by Antalya, Marmaris and the Turks are looking for something different, there is a large community of Bulgarian expatriates in Bursa, perhaps over half a million. Many of their descendants no longer have any connection with Bulgaria and are showing real interest," said Julian Bonev, member of the Board of the Varna Association of Travel Agencies.

Nejdet Hamzaoglu is from Bursa and has been a tour operator for more than 20 years.

"Today I was in Kranevo. I saw a hotel much above my expectations, with very high quality, with smiling people. This beach and this sand cannot be seen anywhere in Turkey.. In my opinion, this region here - I am talking about Varna and the region, Bourgas and Sozopol, these resorts, are not advertised in Turkey," added Nejdet Hamzaoglu, a tour operator.

The meeting in Varna is the result of a long-standing partnership between Bulgarian and Turkish tour operators and hoteliers.

"Tour operators have said that there is interest from Turks who want to visit our Black Sea coast, but unfortunately they do not have enough information. This gave us the idea to organise such an infotour. They are already on their third day in Varna. Of course you can't see everything, but we managed to highlight the most interesting places - they saw the Aladzha Monastery and the Archaeological Museum. The nightlife is very important to them," added Pavlin Kosev, chairman of the Varna Association of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers.

"From Turkey to Bulgaria, there are motorways built everywhere and it takes two or three hours to get to the Bulgarian border, in three hours from Bursa," said Julian Bonev, member of the Board of the Varna Association of Travel Agencies.

The biggest problem, according to specialists, are visas for tourists from Turkey.

"We admire the government's efforts to be able to develop the electronic visas, which will be a huge incentive to issue them. Now they are issued in Bursa - we have a consulate in Edirne, Istanbul and Ankara. It takes more than 2 weeks to issue a visa," said Julian Bonev.

"For Greece, for example, a Turkish tourist goes to the border to the ferry and can get visa issued at the ferry itself," said Nejdet Hamzaoglu, a tour operator.

At the same time, Bulgarians' interest in Turkish resorts is still high, although prices for holidays there have increased by about 40 percent compared to past years. According to specialists, this is due to the high quality of tourist services in our southern neighbour.