With the voiding of visa requirements for Serbian, Macedonian and Montenegrin nationals, the Bulgarian mountain resort town of Bansko has seen a “big increase” in tourists from those countries, a welcomed development given the vacuum created by the absence of tourists from traditional markets, website investor.bg reported in January 2010.
Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian nationals have been able to visit and travel in Bulgaria freely as of December 19 2009.
Traditionally, British, Greek and Romanian tourists frequented Bansko the most. This year, the Greek and Romanian guests have arrived in their usual high numbers, but there was a “drastic decrease in British tourists”.
As of January 14 2010, there was a notable rise observed in Russian and Ukrainian tourists, who came to Pirin and Bansko in particular, according to investor.bg, without giving exact numbers.
One reason for the spike in numbers, according to hotel proprietors in Bansko, was that both countries celebrate Eastern Orthodox holidays using the Julian calendar, which means that Christmas is on January 7 and the unofficial New Year’s Day is on January 14.
Despite the economic crisis, the business sentiment among hotel owners in Bansko for 2010 was positive, investor.bg said, citing a “decent” quality of service and “marginal” effluence tourists.
Source: Investorbg
