Bulgaria’s Black Sea resorts start late-summer discounts, media reports say

2010-08-22

Hotels in Bulgaria’s Black Sea resorts are to offer discounted prices up to 33 per cent from August 23 2010, according to a report by Bulgarian National Television (BNT). An all-inclusive package in a three-star hotel in a resort near Varna would cost 30 to 40 leva a person, and 50 to 60 leva in a four-star hotel, BNT said. This "mid-season" would last about two weeks. At the end of September, prices would fall further, to 20 leva in a three-star and 30 leva in a four star hotel, according to the report. BNT quoted Alexandrina Stoymenova, a sales and marketing manager, as saying that this summer season had been successful for most hoteliers and with the season changing, it was normal for there to be a downturn in tourists. However, some in the industry wanted to maintain the "crest of the wave" by offering lower prices, Stoymenova said. However, there was a cautionary note from travel agency manager Ventsislav Tanchev: "For a hotel offering good quality, it would be a good price. Although at first glance it seem very low, if the hotel offers poor service, even if that price is high:. Those in the industry advised caution when choosing a hotel, because lower prices did not always mean better quality, BNT said. Bulgarian daily Standart said that this year, probably because of the crisis, hoteliers had started to reduce prices at least a week earlier than they had last year. The daily gave as an example a three-star hotel in Sunny Beach, which since August 20 had been offering a night stay with breakfast and dinner for 35 leva a person. If tourists did not want dinner, the price fell to 28 leva a person. Most cafes in the resort had cut drinks prices, up to 50 per cent, the paper said. On August 19, mass-circulation daily Trud quoted Bulgarian Tourist Chamber head Tsvetan Tonchev as saying that Bulgaria’s revenue from tourism in 2010 was expected to be 6.5 billion leva, about 10 per cent of the country’s GDP and would "trigger the mechanism for pulling Bulgaria out of the crisis".