Bulgaria has been proposed to become a coordinator of the tourism group within the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation /BSEC/

23 June 2016

Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova has been proposed to become the coordinator of the tourism group within the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). The proposal was made by the General Secretary of the Organization Michael Christides in a conference of the ministers of the BSEC countries, who are in charge of culture and tourism, held in Sochi, Russia.

The forum was organised under the aegis of the Russian presidency of the Organization and the proposal was supported by the host country and the other participants.

“Thank you for the honour granted to Bulgaria. We are among the founders of the Organization and over the years we have been working for the enhancement of mutual cooperation in all fields”, said Minister Angelkova. She pointed out that over 53% of the foreign tourists visiting Bulgaria come from countries of the BSEC. “This is a total of over 3.7 million people per year. If we look at the region as a whole, it turns out that it is among the most important and largest tourist-generating markets for the Bulgarian tourism”, further stated Nikolina Angelkova. In her opinion the member-states of BSEC should facilitate and foster the trips within the Organization by developing common products, which could attract more tourists from distant markets. “We must utilize the past experience gathered from the cooperation in the Danube region to further improve the achieved results” she said.

The topics discussed during the forum also included the cinematic tourism and the opportunity for popularization of the touristic destinations through movies. Minister Angelkova introduced the Bulgarian experience in making an advertising video featuring some of the most popular Hollywood actors. She emphasized that this is a real marketing instrument for promoting tourism. Specific examples were given of the substantial increase of the number of tourists as a result of film productions, e.g. after the world première of “Harry Potter”, a 50% growth of tourists was registered in the locations shown in the film. In the year 2000, after the première of “The Beach” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, over 22% more young people visited Thailand etc.

The following officials participated in the forum: the General Secretary of BSEC Michael Christides, the Executive Director of the World Tourism Organization Zoltán Somogyi, the Deputy Director of the Federal Tourism Agency Sergey Korneev, representatives of ministries and national institutions from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Russia and Serbia.

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