The Minister of Tourism discusses joint measures to regulate short-term rentals with Booking.com president after alerts submitted from local businesses

The Minister of Tourism Miroslav Borshosh held a key working meeting during his stay in Brussels with the CEO of one of the world's leading online companies Booking.com. The meeting took place during a high-level forum, which The Minister of Tourism Miroslav Borshosh attended at the invitation of the European Tourism Commission. He and Glenn Fogel discussed the possibility of Booking.com undertaking checks on the actual number of short-term rental sites based on data submitted by the Ministry on registered accommodation places. Such checks will kick-start the brightening of the sector until the entry into force in 2026 of the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union on the collection and sharing of data relating to short-term accommodation rental services.

A week earlier in Sofia, Minister of Tourism Miroslav Borshosh spoke with Boris Pavlov of the Association for Tourist Estates and Innovations about possible steps for regulation and transparency of short-term rentals. Mr. Pavlov alerted the Minister of Tourism to the problem of unregistered overnight stays in short-term rentals, which are not included in the general statistics in Bulgaria. As a preventive measure, the Association for Tourist Estates and Innovations offered its assistance to verify the actual number of tourist nights by generating a registration number. "This way we will lighten a large part of the grey sector in the industry with short-term rentals," Pavlov said.

For his part, Minister Miroslav Borshosh expressed his firm position: "The Ministry of Tourism will find a workable solution and will continue its active dialogue with the business, industry organisations and institutions to ensure the protection of the interests of both tourists and legitimate market players."

The issue remains among the priorities for Minister Miroslav Borshosh and the solutions will be formulated at the upcoming working meetings with all stakeholders from the industry.