Minister Angelkova: Joint initiative with Komi for the development of the tourism for children and pilgrimage in Bulgaria

Bulgaria and the Republic of Komi will sign an agreement for cooperation in tourism, which will encourage the travels and exchange of information between the two countries. The focus in this document will be the tourism for children. This was agreed on in Varna between Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova and the head of the Republic of Komi Sergey Gaplikov, who is on a visit to Bulgaria with the Deputy Chairman of the Government of Komi Grigoriy Sarashvili. The meeting was also attended by the District Governor of Varna Stoyan Pasev and the Consul General of the Russian Federation in Varna Sergey Lukyanchuk.

Russia is a strategic partner of Bulgaria in tourism. For me as minister it is extremely important to ensure the comfort of the Russian tourists in Bulgaria, underlined Minister Angelkova. She recalled the notable number of Russian citizens, who visited Bulgaria in 2016. In the record year for the Bulgarian tourism, the guests from Russia ranked fourth among the foreign tourists. Their visits were over 580 ths., which is a growth of around 20% compared to the preceding year. The successful trend continues - from January to the end of May 2017. Their number is over 71 thousand – growth of 6.4% compared to the same period last year. At the moment in the midst of the summer, this growth is estimated to be around 15%. 

Minister Angelkova said to the guests that not only the cooperation with the central Russian authority is important for Bulgaria, but also with the Russian regions. There is a possibility for preparing joint advertising projects for various exhibitions or journalist tours. It is important for us to promote investments in tourism. We are preparing a special ordinance regulating the children’s camps. It is important to legally equalize the standards, because the places for children's recreation have a special status, added Minister Angelkova. She announced the idea to organize Days of the Bulgarian Culture in Russia and Days of the Russian Culture in Bulgaria, where the traditions of both countries will be presented. A strong incentive to increase the number of guests from Russia and the regions will be the creation of joint routes for religious tourism. I think that if we determine several routes and then offer them jointly, we will have more success, the minister said. Via the heads of state of the Republic of Komi she addressed the future investors in tourism stating that the main priority for the Bulgarian government is reducing the administrative burden for them. For each investment the administrative promptness is crucial and we are ready to help all potential investors in Bulgaria, the Minister of Tourism said.

“Bulgaria is a peaceful country, which welcomes the Russian tourists excellently. We highly appreciate your attitude toward them and especially to our children. Therefore we will encourage the vacations in Bulgaria. More and more people from our country prefer your country and I hope this trend will be preserved”, said Sergey Gaplikov.