Minister Angelkova: The tourism advertising funding in 2017 to be increased by 30%

The draft national budget envisages an increase of some 30% for the advertising funding, reaching nearly BGN 11 mil. This was announced by the Minister of Tourism, Nikolina Angelkova, in an interview for Bulgarian National Radio.

„Tourism is presently identified as a national priority, which is why we are reporting the record numbers in the sector“, Minister Angelkova indicated. She emphasized that the main objective of the Ministry of Tourism is to spend the advertising funds with maximum efficiency. „The results are visible, I believe – with several times less funding we succeeded in being competitive in terms of growth reported“, the Minister of Tourism said.

She commented that meetings in the sector to prepare for Summer‘2017 are already underway. „This is something standard for the businesses – negotiations between hoteliers and tour operators usually commence as early as October. In years past, however, the government would become involved at a much later stage, when all is agreed and allocated. We want to reverse this approach and become involved in the process from start to finish, attempting to support Bulgarian businesses in each and every way“, Nikolina Angelkova added. According to her, meetings have already been held with large-scale tour operators, such as TUI Group and Thomas Cook, which have forecasted a 30% growth in their programs for the next summer season.

In the eve of the winter season growth is observed in the early bookings, but the picture can be commented on more in-depth in December and January, Nikolina Angelkova noted. She confirmed the advance forecasts of 4.5 – 5% growth for the entire winter season. Growth has thus far being registered from markets such as Russia, UK, Ireland, Romania, Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, and Israel.