Two hotels may seem to be too little to form a chain, but add a third, and it will make all the difference.

That was probably the principle that the owners of the first Bulgarian private chain of hotels Grifid Hotels decided to follow. On May 8 2008, owner Grigor Fidanov told Dnenvik daily that the chain was to expand by acquiring a hotel in the coastal resort of Zlatni Pyasutsi (Golden Sands). The chain’s other two hotels, the four-star Arabella and Bolero, are also in the resort.

“I intend to buy another hotel in Zlatni Pyasutsi, near Arabella and Bolero,” Fidanov told Dnevnik. The goal is to produce a large complex. The negotiations, however, were tough because of the financial side of the deal, he said.

Grifid Hotels also planned to build a new hotel in the coastal town of Aheloi on 20 000 sq m. The company had not given up its former plans to start building city hotels.

Asked to confirm the deal, the company’s executive director Tanya Tsvetanova said that she was not aware of the situation and promised to check the situation and call back. She did not responded the time The Sofia Echo went to press.

In the end of 2004, Bulgarian-language media reports said that UK travel company Thomson would invest between 13 million and 15 million euro in what was to become the first clubhotel of the company in Bulgaria, Bolero. Since 2008, Thompson was no longer servicing the northern Bulgarian coast, Tsvetanova said.

Meanwhile, the chain is preparing for the summer season. Currently, Arabella has 592 beds and Bolero, 598. Tsvetanova told Dnevnik that the bookings for Arabella and Bolero for July and August were between 60 and 65 per cent of the total amount of beds in the hotels. “And that is even before we start the last-minute bookings,” she told Dnevnik.