News

British Airways announced five more early-hours flights from Varna and Sofia London's Gatwick to manage the traditionally heavy summer schedule.

The British aviation operator has opened just recently, in March, the Varna destination performing two evening flights weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

As of June 5 BA's clients will be able to book also early Mondays and Tuesdays (flights taking off at 05:00 a.m. local time).

The two-way ticket costs EUR 160, without airport fees.

. Bulgaria was classified as "the new Costa del Sol" according to the UK Daily Mail one year ago. There are many people who are starting to look for properties in Bulgaria: Footballers from UK football clubs, including Chelsea, property investors from all over the world, people, seeking to buy second or retirement home. Like Croatia, Bulgaria is expecting EU accession within the next few years and this will necessarily lead to a considerable increase in its real estate value. A similar process has already started to occur in Cyprus and when Bulgaria accedes to the European Union in 2007 it is widely believed that Sofia in particular will compete with other leading European capitals as a location for the European offices of many multi-national companies.

Bulgaria also has ranked first in the world for 2005 in the amount of investments, compared to the GDP, a report by the World Bank states.
The country has received EUR 1.46 B for the first nine months of the year. After the purchase of mobile operator M-tel, Austria has become the biggest investor country in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria awaits investments totalling EUR 6.1 B for 2006. EUR 3.8 B of them would come from local investors and the rest EUR 2.3 B would be foreign. 20 new investment projects would be launched by March 2006.
It is a fact that most of the people who want to buy a property there know nothing or very little about the country.

Property investors from the UK are now willing to step out of the comfort zones of France and Spain and are prepared to seek out better returns on property further afield.
This is the view of Richard Evans, writing for the Telegraph, and he picks out Bulgaria and Turkey as examples of the kind of countries that are now drawing property investment projects.
There are still relatively few cheap flights to Bulgaria and this is clearly a reason behind many investors continuing to prefer property investment in France and Spain. It is noticeable, however, that as an increasing number of European companies begin to offer such a service, activity in the property market has started to rise in Bulgaria.

With cheap flights expected from UK airports before long, demand for property in the country is set to receive a further boost in the coming years, although many investors have already been prepared to pay the extra transportation costs on the basis that they are saving a huge amount on inexpensive property.

Tishman International is to invest 200 million euro in a new commercial park near the Sofia International Airport. The project will be co-financed by Tishman as well as the Bulgarian office of Greece’s Emporiki Bank. The commercial park will have a 10 ha footprint and built-up area of 256 000 sq m, including 100 000 sq m of office space, 20 000 sq m of warehouse floor area and 40 000 sq m of hotel premises.

A subway station, providing a transport link with the central and western boroughs of the capital, should open near the commercial park within three years. A total of 90 000 sq m of office space will be placed on the market during the initial stage of the project. About 20 000 sq m of logistics and industrial floor area will be built by the autumn of 2007. A total of 30 000 sq m of Class A low to mid-rise office buildings will be ready in the first half of 2008.

The biggest budget carrier in Europe, the Irish Ryanair plans to open several new bases and will consider destinations in Eastern Europe.
The company is negotiating with airports in Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, and Switzerland about opening up new routes, Irish Examiner reported.
The carrier announced that for the six months to end September its profit climbed by 39% to EUR 329 M.
Around EUR 213 M of the interim profit figure was generated in the three months to September 30. Ryanair also said the company's turnover increased by 33% to EUR 1.25 B.

IT'S time to get your thermals on as this year's ski season gets under way - follow this essential guide to the best slopes.

Bansko, Bulgaria
THE hysteria surrounding the predictions of thousands of headscarfed Bulgarians flooding our shores in the next few months has masked one rather important fact - Bulgaria is on the slow climb to prosperity itself, thank you very much. Even though it may not always have been a luxurious destination, or easy to reach, the British have been visiting the country for many years, lured by inexpensive family holidays.

That's all changing, though, particularly when it comes to skiing. Skiers have been used to lengthy transfers to reach the slopes in the past, but there are plans to build an airport within the next five years close to Bansko, at the base of the Pirin mountains. Apart from its idyllic setting, this could prove to be one of its greatest selling points.

The current airports are at Sofia or Plovdiv, both 100 miles from the village. With at least two hours' driving from each, a dedicated airport would give Bansko a distinct advantage.

Visits to Bulgaria by foreign tourists rose by 5.1% year-on-year from January-September 2006, according to the latest data of the National Statistical Institute. The data showed that the increase was due to a great extent to visits by Romanian tourists, which increased by 2.2 times year-on-year over the period, representing three quarters of the overall increase.

David Schuh has been snowboarding since 1985, back when he and other fans were considered renegades on the slopes. Today, all that has changed.

"You can definitely go see the attorneys who are snowboarding now. It's more socially acceptable, not as bohemian," said Schuh, a publishing executive in Southern California.

Since the late 1980s, the number of skiers in the United States has dropped by half while the number of snowboarders has increased by a factor of five - so the two groups are almost the same size today, according to the 2006 annual report of SnowSports Industries America. While snowboarding still is most popular among teenager boys, the financial profile of the average snowboarder has changed since the early days of the sport. In 1990, only around a third of snowboarders earned more than $50,000 a year. In 2005 that number jumped to almost two-thirds, while almost a third of all snowboarders earned more than $100,000, according to the report.

So it is not surprising that more and more snowboarders are becoming part of the winter sports set, buying homes at upscale resorts that have terrain designed specially for boarders and, of course, a certain lifestyle.

"Because snowboarding has been around for so long now, a lot of our buyers are quite affluent, so we get a fair mix of snowboarders and skiers," said Simon Robinson, a real estate developer in Niseko, Japan, on the west coast of the island of Hokkaido.

Bulgarian construction firm Balkanstroy will invest 240 million levs ($156.8 million) over the next three years to build a golf and ski complex in the Balkan country, the Investment Agency said yesterday. The company plans to build new ski tracks with lifts, spa hotels and a golf course at the foot of Pirin Mountain, in southwestern Bulgaria. Balkanstroy will secure the financing through its own funds, the agency said. Investors are rushing to join in a boom for real estate deals in Bulgaria, mainly building holiday resorts at its Black Sea coast and mountains, betting on an expected rise in tourists as the country becomes an EU member next January. Sofia sees foreign direct investment, mainly in real estate, at a record 3.0 billion euros ($3.8 billion) this year. (Reuters)

An extravagant new ski and golf centre, designed to bring in tourists from around Europe, is to be built in Bulgaria it has been announced.

To be built in the Kulinoto area near Bansko resort, the centre will be aimed at year-round tourism, reports the Dnevnik Daily.

The ski area alone will boast 20 installations, with 20 kilometres of lift routes and ski tracks measuring 60 kilometres long.

And the golf area will include a hotel, clubhouse, commercial complexes and a golf playground.