Minister Angelkova at a discussion organised by lead world media: We want Bulgaria to be associated with its rich cultural heritage

It is particularly important for Bulgaria to start being associated with its rich cultural heritage. Over 40 thousand artifacts have been found in our country and we rank third in Europe by this heritage.  The monuments of culture date back to the Thracian, Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine and other periods and have a serious impact on the Bulgarian culture and lifestyle, the Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova stated at a discussion in London about cultural and historical tourism, organised by National Geographic jointly with TheTimes, The Sunday Times and The Wall Street Journal within the international tourism show WTM.

Minister Angelkova drew attention to the single interactive platform with the mobile application I Love Bulgaria, developed by the Ministry, which combines all elements of the tourist sector – attractions, accommodation, food and drink establishments, accompanying services, etc. It includes the 100 national tourist sites, supplemented by new attractions in the regions.  By scanning the QR code of each national site information and visualization of its 3D image will be provided.

We have developed 8 cultural and historical destinations. They are published on the website of the Ministry and from them tourists will be able to get information about all cultural and historic   sites in a given destination. This proved to be a good and workable practice and thanks to it the number of visitors to such places has significantly increased, Minister Angelkova clarified.

She also noted that Bulgaria has a huge potential to develop not only  traditional and mass  types of tourism  in summer and winter, but many other specialized  services in the sector – cultural, balneological and spa,  wellness, eco and rural, mountain,  adventure, hunting, golf tourism, etc. Among the new forms are sport and culinary tourism which also attract many visitors.  In regard to sport tourism Minister Angelkova added that the country is actively preparing for the winter season.  High interest is expected in the competitions for the Snowboard World Cup in January 2018, which will be held for the second d time in Bansko – one of the lead destinations for mountain tourism. We have the potential and the necessary facilities to host other big sport fora, e.g.  rhythmic gymnastics, tennis, volley ball.

The most recent project of the Ministry of Tourism is connected with culinary tourism, implemented jointly with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.  It includes development of 12 wine and cultural destinations covering the entire territory of the country. They present traditional food and drinks for a given region and show nearby tourist attractions. At present they are being discussed with industry organizations and local authorities. We expect that by mid-2018 these destinations will be finalized and after that they will be digitalized, which is our pro-active policy on overall advertising of the country as a country of four seasons, Minister Angelkova stated at the discussion.