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Bulgaria winter resorts continue making investments despite the crisis
Anita Valentinova,source: Pari Daily, 10.11.2009
Ski resorts in Bulgaria are actively preparing for the upcoming winter season 2009/2010. Besides the traditional cleaning of the ski tracks, additional investments have been made in some of the resorts despite the touch economic situation, revealed a survey of the newspaper Pari Daily. It is still too early to announce the prices of ski passes, but concessionaires of ski facilities commented that they do not intend to raise prices, so holidaymakers should have in mind that ski lift passes will keep their levels of the past year. Although the ski season approaches, it is still too early to conclude whether there will be enough tourists in the winter and if hotels will be fully occupied.
Borovets
The concessionaire of Borovets's ski runs, Borosport, has invested 40 million EUR in the development of the resort this year.
The major project, which was completely finished for the upcoming winter season, was the construction of the open water source between the ski runs Yastrebets 2 and 3.
It has the capacity of 35 000 m2 water which will ensure the ideal ski cover and maintenance of more than 200 ski runs, as well as the connections to the Yastrebets Express ski lift during the whole winter season. In the beginning of October Borovets ski resort was ranked second in terms of the ratio cheap and quality ski vacation in the survey, conducted by UK Post Office.
Bansko
The Marketing director of the concessionaire in Bansko, Yulen, has stated that the top European resort Bansko is ready for the forthcoming winter season and the only thing to pull the trigger on the beginning of the ski season is to have favourable temperatures 3 degrees below 0 Celsius. The great number of snow ensuring facilities in Bansko /180 in total/ will suffice for the new ski season and this is the reason why serious investments were not made in this respect. However, the concessionaire of the beloved Bansko resort has spent 2 million BGN on the improvements of the ski tracks.
Rhodopes
New snowmaking systems have been installed in Pamporovo and Chepelare as well. The newly installed system for artificial snow making guarantees 100% coverage of the ski tracks. Thus, conditions at Pamporovo ski tracks were excellently improved. In addition to that the new 6-seat lift, starting from Stoykite, and the two newly constructed ski tracks, will be also put into operation. Vitosha Ski will prepare the ski runs in Vitosha Mountain within a couple of weeks. In this way, ski tracks suitable for alpine skiing in Pamporovo will reach 37km.
Old pistes and facilities in Chepelare were entirely renovated and marked in accordance with European standards.
Vitosha
Ski tracks in Vitosha Mountain have not been prepared for the upcoming season, but the preparation is in progress, commented the Executive officer of Vitosha Ski. It is expected that 2-3 weeks will be sufficient for the resort to get prepared for the new ski season. Skiers should also know that not only the ski run Vitoshko Lale is suitable for winter adventures, but also the area around chalets Sulzitsa and the locales Vetrovala and Ofeliite.
The Forecast
It is too early to make conclusions whether there will be enough tourists for winter season 2009/2010 since the majority of bookings are traditionally made in the last minute. After the tourism exhibition which took place in Moscow, tourism business in Bulgaria has valid grounds to expect more flights from Russia. However, representatives consider that extra bonuses need to be introduced in order to attract new clients as Bulgaria should pay a part of their visas. The tourist market World Travel Market in London, which is currently taking place, is crucial for the number of bookings, made by the Britons. Serbians and Macedonians are anticipating whether visas will be abolished as such action will increase tourist flow in Bulgaria significantly. It is predicted that the number of UK tourists will not change considerably this year. Flights from Russia are doubled on an annual basis. The tour operator Balkan Tourist foresees a growth of 15% of skihounds to the winter resort Borovets.
Meteorologists’ view
Bulgaria will have snowy winter
The meteorologist Iliyan Gospodinov commented for Pari Daily that the forthcoming winter season will have excellent skiing conditions, even the season will be more ski-friendly than the last year. It is forecasted that November and December will bring heavy snowfalls to Bulgaria’s mountains. Hence, great snow blanket will cover mountains in the end of December.
Showers of snowfalls are expected in January as well. The renowned meteorologist pointed out that there is no doubt that that ski cover will remain in February 2010. As the end of the winter and the beginning of the spring will be relatively cold, snow coverage will be retained even in March.
Huge construction projects at Bulgarian ski resorts frozen
The biggest tourist projects in Bulgaria, namely Super Borovets and Sports&Tourist center Perelik /also known as Super Perelik/, may not be realized. Unfortunately, the global crisis affected the project for Super Borovets and as a consequence it has been frozen. Super Borovets has already absorbed approximately 30 million EUR as lands were obtained the various procedures have been initiated.
See source here First snow arrived in Bulgaria Borovets ski webcam LIVE BEST Ski Deals on the web
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