Minister Angelkova before Chinese investors: We are currently preparing a campaign for attracting tourists from China, there will be a Chinese version on the tourist portal of Bulgaria

China is extremely important for tourism in Europe and we have been working purposefully to popularize Bulgaria as a tourist destination on the Chinese market. We are currently preparing a marketing campaign in order to attract guests from China, which we are planning to implement the following year. The official tourist portal of Bulgaria will also be accessible in Chinese language after it is updated in 2019. This is what the Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova said at a working meeting with Chinese businessmen and investors which has been held in Sofia today.

Ping Liu, the president of Bright Food Group, Shaohua Pu, the chairperson of the board of directors of Bright Dairy and other company representatives participated in this talk. This company has been producing and distributing on the Chinese market yoghurt under the brand “Monchilovtsi” for 10 years and has participated in the organization of the festival of yoghurt in our country with the same name for 4 years. Mr. Ping Liu pointed out that “Momchilovtsi” is known to over 150 million Chinese people and is the most popular yoghurt in China.  

This year, one of the major objectives in Europe is the initiative “2018 – The year of tourism EU – China”. The potential of the Chinese market is huge and it is expected that in the forthcoming years, the trips of the Chinese tourists will continually rise, said Minister Angelkova. She informed the other interlocutors that the Ministry of Tourism is developing a special product aimed at distant markets which will be used to popularize the possibilities for tourism in the region. This is the so called “Balkan route”, which is a joint project of 11 Balkan countries – Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Turkey, Montenegro, Croatia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and the Republic of Macedonia.

The first Bulgarian tourist information centre was opened in Shanghai last year, reminded Minister Angelkova. At present, activities are being conducted to prepare the opening of a centre in Beijing and research is being done to study the possibilities for establishing such sites in other Chinese provinces.

Minister Angelkova and Mr. Ping Liu commented that the relations between Bulgaria and China have been developing dynamically over the last years and this fact can be supported by the high-level meetings of the Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and the chairperson of the State Council of China Li Keqiang held in Sofia in July as part of the “16+1” forum. The guest expressed his hopes that the good partnership will continue and this will have a positive effect on the growth of the number of tourists.

Within the period January-July this year, the visits of Chinese tourists have reached 15,5 thousand, which ranks the Chinese market 32^nd among the leading countries for inbound tourism in Bulgaria, said Minister Angelkova, pointing out that the possibilities are much greater. In 2017, the visits of Chinese tourists exceeded 26,2 thousand, which constituted an increase of 41,2% compared to the previous year. Mr. Ping Liu said that the country has the potential to double the visits of Chinese tourists every year. They both stated their willingness to support and organize joint initiatives that will contribute to the exchange of tourists between the two countries.