Bulgarians tend to leave planning their summer holidays until the last moment. But with constant reports of increasing number of tourists at the Bulgarian Black Sea coastal resorts and the high season coming, is it still possible to book a holiday? This is what The Sofia Echo tried to find out, contacting tour operators.

Surfing through online booking websites showed that some hotels on the coast had no rooms available at the beginning of July, or even until August. Accommodation with a sea view is available only at hotel receptions and often only upon additional payment. Prices for a double room vary from 190 to 268 leva for all-inclusive packages in a three-star hotel in Albena; between 131 and 230 leva for a four-star hotel in Zlatni Pyasutsi (Golden Sands); between 204 and 288 leva in a four-star hotel in SS Konstantin and Elena and from 70 to 155 leva for bed and breakfast in a four-star hotel in Slunchev Bryag (Sunny Beach).

“Booking becomes more difficult in this period,” an Alma Tour representative told The Sofia Echo. Because of the decreasing number of places, a single tourist could find accommodation more easily than a group. “Now we are in transition from one season to the other [low to high season]. Usually this period is close to sold out,” the company spokesperson said. From mid-July, when the high season begins, prices would rise and there would be more  accommodation free, the Alma Tour representative said.

Alma Tour’s data shows that customers tend to prefer either all-inclusive packages in three- and four-star hotels or the cheapest possible option. Tourists that prefer the more expensive accommodations usually book shorter stays, mainly at weekends.

According to Astral Holidays marketing and sales supervisor Veneta Sotirova, “there is enough free accommodation at the seaside, but the best hotels are booked as early as the beginning of the year for the whole season.” In the case of last-moment bookings, “it is far easier to find two or three rooms, than 10 or 20, for example,” Sotirova said. Last-minute bookings can get a discount of nearly 10 per cent and more. Sotirova said that in the past couple of years all-inclusive bookings for family holidays of seven to 10 days have become increasingly popular.

Tourism website posoka.com told The Sofia Echo that the most common problem with bookings in this period, especially with foreign tour operators, was what is termed “stop sales” when tour operators book accommodation for a certain period to sell deals independently. Often enough, tour operators would slash prices on some bookings if they cannot fill them otherwise, or cancel the bookings altogether. Still, there are no problems with bookings – on the contrary, reservations are made fairly quickly, a posoka.com representative said.