Minister Angelkova: 61% of Bulgarians are prepared to travel and take holidays in the country but they lack sufficient information

26 January 2015
министърът на туризма Николина Ангелкова

Sociological research shows that 61% of the Bulgarians are prepared to travel and take holidays in the country but have no idea where to go and how to invest their spare time.  The statement was made by the Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova. Today she launched a campaign for encouraging interior tourism in Bulgaria. Funds are provided by the Operational Programme “Regional Development” 2007-2013 which will focus on 50 little known tourist sites.

"When I took over the Ministry I inherited a signed contract with outlined parameters for its implementation. The only thing we could do was to speed up work and shorten the deadlines so that we could effectively assimilate the EU funds”, explained Minister Angelkova. The campaign is expected to better inform Bulgarians about the year-round tourism possibilities of Bulgaria and increase the share of interior travels. This may compensate for the drop of foreign tourists from some of our traditional markets.

"Bulgarians have a positive attitude towards Bulgaria as a place for tourism – 85% consider it a good place for their vacation. The problem is that only 16% take active interest in tourism in Bulgaria”, said Nikolina Angelkova. She noted that 78% of the participants in the poll have declared that nothing has spurred their interest recently  regarding tourism in Bulgaria and they have not seen any relevant advertising.

Data by the National Statistical Institute shows that in the past 11 months of 2014 the Bulgarians who have vacationed in Bulgaria amount to 2.6 million which makes for a 5% growth compared to the period of January-November 2013. However, for the same period of 2014, the Bulgarians who have been on vacation abroad are almost 1.1 million which is a 27% growth compared to 201З. "Generally, Bulgarians are used to planning their trips alone but prefer to travel abroad on organized trips”, added the Minister of Tourism.  Hence the campaign aims to increase interest in the year-round destinations in Bulgaria which are suitable for one-day or weekend vacations.

The campaign will be launched next week with a video promoting the Stone Mushrooms (Kamenni Gabi), the Neutzikon Fortress and the Dragoman Plateau. A special site has also been created - myastoto.bg which will be launched at the start of the campaign.

The overall budget for the activity “Integrated communication campaign for encouraging interior tourism in Bulgaria” is 1.9 million leva. In addition to this activity and as part of the project “Communication campaign for encouraging interior tourism in Bulgaria” an analysis has been prepared to date of the main motivation of Bulgarians for travelling in and outside the country. Four journalistic tours have been organized as part of the national exhibits in Varna, Burgas, Ruse and Smolyan as well as 6 thematic journalistic tours concerning the different kinds of tourism. All information materials have been made available. A program has been drafted for encouraging travels by Bulgarian citizens throughout the country in 2015. The promotional messages have been tested with target groups. Future activities of the campaign are set to include a target group of 2 million people. A 30-minute TV spot will aslo be shot and broadcast on national television. There will be print, internet and internal advertising as well.

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