Rumen Draganov, Director of the Institute for Analysis and Assessment of Tourism: Hybrid tourism becomes more and more trendy

- Mr. Draganov, what are the objectives of the tourism sector in 2012?
- Tourism must overcome the managerial and conceptual crisis in recent years. I hope this will happen via the introduction of the new Tourism Act, which is expected to be adopted this year in order to implement the reform in the sector. Besides, the reform, which is to be introduced, should define the term "tourist attraction" because the majority of the operational programmes of the European Union use this definition. Tourist attractions have to be recognised as tourist landmarks, which will promote their development.This is the basis for the future development of tourism. I expect the schemes for marketing destinations to be drawn up. These can start providing various opportunities for tourism in Bulgaria, Europe and worldwide.

The next important thing to be implemented refers to the activity untypical for the state, which is called categorisation of accommodations, as well as of catering and entertainment establishments, along with the registration of tour operators and travel agents, which should be carried out and monitored as procedure by branch organisations. The establishment of sufficient guarantees for Bulgarian tourists who travel abroad by Bulgarian tour operators becomes increasingly an important issue. It comes down to granting clients the guarantee that they will be transported back home in case of insolvency or bankruptcy of the tourist company. In this way, each unpleasant situation similar to the notorious case of the Alma Tour tour operator with its unpaid flights to the Bulgaria Air national air carrier can be avoided. This notorious case remains unsolved because more than 1,400 people have not been granted their travel insurance coverage yet. It is because the legislator or the submitters of the Tourism Bill have failed to envisage the establishment of sufficient guarantees in this respect.

- What should the objectives of the reform be?
- As a whole, the reform should result in two main things. The first one refers to the creation of more jobs as a result of the promotion of tourist attractions and the tourism industry as a whole, and the second objective relates to the improvement of local economies via increasing tourism revenues by enhancing the average bed rate occupancy . For the first half of last year, we had an average employment of less than 25%, while, this year, considering the low initial results, we will continue to have an extremely low average bed occupancy rate. For the first half of this year, the same results are expected, which is a disaster for all investors in the tourism sector.

- Is the above-mentioned problem a major one?
- Due to the ongoing crisis in the management of tourist attractions, which are state-owned and because of the impossibility to open new jobs based on these tourist landmarks, this year, Bulgaria will continue to slump to the last position in terms of the average bed occupancy rate. The average revenue, as a result of the booking of hotel rooms, will continue to be extremely low as a coefficient because it is obtained by multiplying the average bed occupancy rate by the average price. In Bulgaria, the average price of accommodation is slumping due to the oversupply of tourist products and the lack of regulations. One of the reasons for the price decline in winter resorts, for example, is that there are many apartment hotels operating by leasing apartments, rather than renting guest houses, Besides, they are even not operating in compliance with the lease system of private accommodations since the latter is also not allowed by law. The latter situation authorises foreign tour operators from nearby countries to sell very low-cost accommodations in Bulgaria. This generates natural dumping prices of all tourist operators who are registered under Bulgarian law as hoteliers and guest houses and private accommodations. Thus, all of them are defrauded financially by the legislative vacuum, which has lasted for many years.

- What do you think the new trends in tourism are?
- We already offer hybrid models, combining a holiday package with different types of tourism. This concept, which is based entirely on the mainstays of summer, winter, cultural, rural, and culinary tourism is already changing. Recently, there were rumours about tourist products, which are a combination of all these types of tourism observed during the holiday or journey of any Bulgarian or foreigner to our country. Relaxation and recreation activities are combined with culinary, pilgrimage and cultural tourism. Besides, the more developed tourist centres provide services which are consumed by the new Bulgarian generation. We see that restaurants already offer full computerised services to their clients and the waiters can immediately order online the requests of each client, thus saving time. We can already see the food barcode labels on restaurant tables, which allows for immediate comments to be made of the food served there via a phone-call from a smartphone. Besides, a bottle of wine can be purchased at the average shop price and consumed at the restaurant with a minimal corkage fee. 

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