For a moment, as the New Year dawned, there was a brightness in the air about Bulgaria’s tourist industry this winter of 2011 into 2012.

Tax reforms that came into force on January 1 regarding the tourist industry, while reducing revenue for the state, were expected to have a beneficial effect on the industry. Beyond that, expectations were that the current season would be "good, but perhaps not very good" in the words of Tsvetan Tonchev of the Bulgarian Tourist Chamber.

Hotel prices this season were similar to those of the previous winter and there were plenty of special offers, he said. Meanwhile, Bulgarian National Television (BNT) hailed the weather as wonderful for winter tourism.

Unfortunately, incidents that followed showed that the country has some way to go to escape the kind of problems that have come up before.

Abroad, Foreign Ministry intervention was required when a financial dispute saw a group of Bulgarian tourists briefly stranded in Tangier over unpaid fees. Betz Travel, the company at the centre of the dispute, found itself under investigation by the Consumer Protection Commission and by the Bulgarian police, although it denies wrongdoing. Local media likened the episode to the Alma Tours debacle of 2011.

Closer to home, intervention by a bank against a hotel in Bansko saw a group of foreign tourists, mainly from Russia and Serbia, as well as Bulgarians, barred from access to their accommodation, luggage and even the breakfast room, reportedly by baton-wielding security staff acting on behalf of the bank. Bulgarian media quoted the Russians (a significant source of tourists at the moment) as complaining that their compatriots had been given a rough time at the Black Sea – a reference to the Alma Tours episode – and now they were being forced out into the cold in Bulgaria’s mountain resorts.

This was hardly the only episode in which officialdom was called on to intervene. Public broadcaster BNT reported that in Bansko, the resort’s tourism association had complained of Greek companies allegedly working illegally; these allegations included, among other things, that they were not paying revenue due to Bulgaria, were using non-categorised accommodation and so undercutting local business and were using unregistered guides.
 
Winter blunderland
While Bulgaria’s winter resorts opened their seasons in December relying mainly on powder generated by snow machines, the weekend of January 7 and 8 provided an inelegant sufficiency of snow – and it proved all too much for vital utilities and for some in state officialdom.

Preceded by strong wind and rain, heavy snowfall brought down powerlines and saw serious traffic disruption, including on major motorways.

Resorts including Pamporovo, Borovets and Chepelare found themselves without electricity and restoration took time, in spite of the stout efforts of power distribution companies’ emergency teams.

In Chepelare, an emergency was declared on January 8, after a power cut and some water supply problems. Pamporovo found itself with electricity supply problems, water cut off and some foreign tourists stranded, while Bulgarian media reported that the situation had prompted some tourists to quit the resort early.

At these resorts and in Bansko, hoteliers resorted to their own electricity generators, while in Pamporovo, one hotelier interviewed by BNT said that he had been handing out three litres of bottled water each to his guests, while their rooms also had canned water.

After a weekend in Borovets, UK charge d’affaires Catherine Barber wrote in her blog: "Amazing snowfall - at least 50cm in one day judging by my car!

"Great skiing on Friday evening, but a major power line came down on Saturday due to the heavy snow, and the electricity was still off when I left today. Hotels and restaurants coped pretty well in the circumstances, but it was a shame that the lifts couldn't be run on generators. Tourists who'd bought ski passes and didn't have a chance to use them weren't happy. Better communication from the resort's management would have helped," she said.

The situation on the motorways led to some official heads rolling. Regional Development Minister Liliana Pavlova announced that the chairman of the board and the executive director of Avtomagistrali AD, the state-owned company responsible for winter cleaning of motorways, had been fired.