Deputy Minister Irena Georgieva launched the “Bulgaria welcomes the tastes of the world” initiative

01 March 2016

Deputy Minister of Tourism, Irena Georgieva, together with representatives of nearly 20 foreign diplomatic missions in this country, launched the International Culinary Festival “Bulgaria welcomes the tastes of the world”. The initiative, which is held in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism, is a continuation of last year’s online campaign “You think you know Bulgaria?”, behind which the embassies of Israel, Poland and Croatia stood.

“The willingness of foreign diplomats in this country to support the campaign is evidential of the beneficial relationships that we have established with the diplomatic missions”, said Deputy Minister Georgieva. She emphasised that the representatives of the foreign diplomatic corps in Bulgaria were ambassadors not only of their own countries but also of Bulgaria across the world. From her words it became clear that this initiative was yet another step in the efforts of the Ministry to promote domestic tourism and the Ministry’s desire to draw the attention to the country’s traditions and cultural heritage.

The Deputy Minister also noted that the good results of the measures taken to foster domestic tourism were confirmed by statistics. “According to Eurostat data, last year the number of overnight stays of Bulgarian citizens in accommodation establishments with more than 10 beds in the country increased by 6% compared to 2014, which exceeds significantly the average growth of only 3 % in the European Union, and Bulgaria ranks 10th in the European Union”, she pointed out. Irena Georgieva also quoted NSI data, according to which overnights of Bulgarians within the country were over 3.4 million and revenues totalled more than BGN 305 M, an increase of 6.6%.

The first phase of the Bulgaria welcomes the tastes of the world campaign starts today, 1 March 2016, and will run on the website of the project www.iknowbulgaria.bg. All participants will be able to share recipes of the traditional Bulgarian cuisine and photos of dishes prepared by them in 4 categories. Special jury of chefs and experts from the HRC Culinary Academy will evaluate and select the 100 best dishes by the end of April. The winners will represent Bulgaria and Bulgarian traditional cuisine at the International Culinary Festival. It will be held in May (12-28), and plans to cover several major Bulgarian cities – Stara Zagora, Plovdiv, Burgas, Varna, Ruse, Blagoevgrad, Veliko Tarnovo and Sofia. At specific locations in each of the said cities Bulgarian food will meet with traditional dishes and drinks from over 20 other countries.

The event dedicated to launching the campaign was attended by the ambassadors of Israel, Egypt, Poland, Croatia, Azerbaijan, The Czech Republic, Morocco, Ireland and India, and representatives of the embassies of Mexico, Venezuela, Italy, USA, UK, as well as municipalities, etc.

 

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