The National Tourism Industry Confederation (NTIC) finally came into being on September 6, the idea having been announced just days into the summer season. The event marked the end of the summer, but nothing more. There had been a whole season to erase the bitter industry divide that the initial announcement caused.
Yet news about its creation just caused more tension in the tourism industry. This was confirmed by both past and recent events.
Arguments among industry members started just two weeks after the mid-April memorandum on the confederation’s formation was signed. It occurred irrespective – or maybe because – of the full governmental support for the initiative.
Diverging opinions on the future of the industry, unattained leadership ambitions or dislike of one association/union leader or another, EU funds and fears of impending related embezzlements were just a few of the points of dissent within the multi-headed industry.
Differences were highlighted at the first ever Congress of Tourism Investors, which took place in May during the International Fair-Plovdiv. They resurfaced in the middle of July. Then one of the most powerful tourism associations, the National Tourism Board (NTB), saw its managerial structure thin out with many a hotelier leaving the entity becaue of a dislike of its strategic direction.
And on September 4, many of those that had left the NTB joined the constitutive session of the Tourism Sector Investors Union (TSIU) in what could hardly be called an unpremeditated move. This founding session took the shine off the first meeting of the NCIT, that had the same purpose and was scheduled for two days later. It also hit the NCIT in terms of size, profile of membership and number of eminent figures on board.
While TSIU has 50 founding members with two billion leva in tourism investments, the NCIT has 26 and only few of them are active investors. The bulk of the latter’s membership comprises of tourism associations with municipalities, unions promoting spa, alternative, cultural, historical tourism and the like.
In addition, all those on TSIU’s managing board brought in, as members, the associations they represented, unlike those in NCIT.
Georgi Gergov, the top manager in the September 6 formation, did so but his deputy Nedyalka Sandalska, manager in charge of Balkantourist hotels, did not. It also appeared his other aide, Tsvetan Tonchev, chairperson of the Bulgarian Tourism Chamber, never received the go-ahead from his primary employer.
The fact that even people on the board joined the initiative as individuals and not as representatives of formal organisations challenged, right from the start, the confederation’s ability to bring the fragmentated industry together.
What is a more interesting question is whether it will actually continue the reverse and feed the fragmenation. Many industry observers believe the mid-April news about the confederation did instigate power struggles, reaffirmed the enduring divide and emphasised that the problems hampering unification are far from being resolved.
Those reflections aside, the confederation has been founded and it has committed to pursue several main goals. Members pledged to draft a hotel classification programme; a blueprint for the administration of tourism facilities’ construction.
Public will have priority over private, members said, and in this respect, the confederation will also consult on project development and European Union funds’ absorption activities.
Expert teams within the confederation will also draft opinions and amendments to tourism-related legislation and regulations.
