News

If cheap fares are the key to filling domestic flights, the scorching heat wave in Great Britain seems enough to ensure full planes on the routes to Bulgaria's Black sea.
A group of 130 Irishmen has landed at the Southern Black Sea coast aboard a charter flight of European Air company, 24 Hours Daily reported. The tourists are to remain in the country for no more than two days and will head home aboard the same plane.

 A new law on tourism is expected to be drafted by the end of November, Mario al-Djebouri, head of the State Agency for Tourism (SAT) announced on October 20.

The proposed bill aims to regulate hostels and apartment complexes and information centres. Its scope will include animators, tour guides, ski instructors and mountain guides. The law is expected to create more opportunities for public-private partnerships in Bulgaria’s tourism sector.

The SAT is also seeking changes to a controversial ordinance on the star-rating of tourist facilities that threatened to downgrade some of the evaluations of Bulgaria’s major hotels. These changes, which will apply only to hotels built before November 30 2004, will allow existing five-star hotels to avoid a downgrade.

The changes were prompted by criticism from Sofia’s upscale hotels, many of which are part of international chains like Hilton, Kempinski and Sheraton. The Sofia Hilton even took court action to preserve its rating.

I've become a big fan of Explore trips since my recent Icelandic volcano trek with the budget adventure outfitter. One of my fellow hikers on that trip, Robert Metcalf, put me on the trail of this other Explore gem: a five-day guided snowshoeing adventure in Bulgaria.

With Bulgaria's trackless Rila Mountains as a backdrop, this trip allows you to visit traditional Bulgarian houses, stop at the painted monastery of Rila — a UNESCO World Heritage site — and eases you into snowshoeing with instruction that should take "just a few minutes to master."

The biggest number of vacation properties was offered for sale in the coastal city of Nessebar and the nearby resorts.
The region continues being one of the most attractive tourism destinations on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, Dnevnik newspaper reported.
Various types of property were offered for sale and could meet the needs of all property seekers, real estate agents said.

The combined tab of the golf projects in various stages of development across Bulgaria is around 700 mln levs, said the InvestBulgaria Agency, the local investment promotion authority.
Golf tourism is now considered a priority for InvestBulgaria which has put together a task force to review local legislation and come up with changes to bolster golf investment.
InvestBulgaria is expected over the next two weeks to hand a First Class Investor certificate to the Cabland Golf Complex near Pomorie, on the Black Sea. The 370 mln lev project is the third local golf development to earn a First Class certificate after the golf course project of Spain's Ferry Group and Golf Club Ibar.

Bulgaria will be one of the top three countries for overseas mortgage distribution by 2020 according to a study by Alliance & Leicester Mortgages.
The other two countries are Spain and France. The three countries look like being the hotspots of the future in the European mortgage market, the study showed.
The Broker World in 2020 study reveals that two-thirds of brokers (68%) think they will do more business in the overseas mortgage market in the future. Nine out of ten (90%) of them think Europe will see the biggest impact and nearly half (45%) expect to expand into Europe by 2020.

It is understandable that many people investing in property for the first time are tempted to limit their search to the UK, but experts have been highlighting the advantages of looking abroad for both residential and commercial investments.

The property market in the UK has admittedly returned to good health in recent months with buy-to-let investors expecting high yields and rising house prices meaning incisive investors are likely to make considerable returns on residential properties.

ALMOST every major city in Central and Eastern Europe seems to aspire to be the “new something”. That Sofia is on this shortlist represents a significant achievement. While Bulgaria has long attracted tourists to its various Black Sea resorts, its capital city was not on the agenda of any but the most intrepid and specialist of travellers even five years ago.
But as Bulgaria approaches full membership of the European Union (scheduled for next year), many of the restrictions that have so far held back Sofia’s potential as a weekend-break location will be eased. There are, for example, no low-cost airlines operating directly between Britain and Sofia. Once an “open skies” market exists, it is hard to believe that others will not explore this virgin territory.

Sofia is thus almost certain to experience a boom and will merit that interest. The core of the city is extremely compact and although the public transport system might seem a little antiquated, it is effective. My wife and I chose to have an inexpensive walking tour (about £7 for two people) with a guide to familiarise ourselves with the city.

Local company Dobrinishte Ski said the skiing zone it is developing between the city of Dobrinishte and the Bezbog peak in the Pirin mountain, South-western Bulgaria, will cost 260 mln levs.
The three-year project has earned Dobrinishte Ski a First Class Investor certificate from InvestBulgaria, the local investment promotion authority.

Property prices in Bulgaria increased over the summer, data of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) shows.

The increase was highest in the coastal cities of Bourgas and Varna. The price increase in Sofia was gradual, mediapool.bg reported.

Real estate sales in Bansko winter resort increased the overall price of property in the Blagoevgrad region by 12.4 per cent, the NSI report said. Apartment purchase in Pamporovo resort hiked the cost of property in the Smolyan region by 12.2 per cent.