Extension of the tourist season ‒ a strategic chance for Bulgarian tourism

Abstract

The article proposes some ideas and solutions that can contribute to extension of the tourist season, based on the analysis and expert assessments of seasonality effect on the Bulgarian resort complexes activity. Seasonality is considered by the author as a property of tourist flows concentrate in certain places for a short time period. From an economic point of view, it represents repeated fluctuations in the demand for tourist trips and, consequently, hotel services with alternating peaks and troughs. As a starting point for the study, the features of seasonality in the resorts of the Republic of Bulgaria are considered. The method of changes analysis in the tourist season is based on official statistical sources. To characterize the seasonal fluctuations in the tourists demand for accommodation services, universal and quantitative indicators are used, in particular: the capacity of the accommodation base (the number of places in the accommodation sites; the potential capacity of bed accommodation (the number of bed days sold during one year or the tourist season); actual use of accommodation capacity (the number of overnight stays, the occupancy rate of beds in accommodations sites, the ratio of bed-days number and number of nights). The author proposes some strategic solutions for extending the tourist season, based on the analysis and assessment of seasonality impact on the resort complexes activity of the Republic of Bulgaria. These include: diversification of the Bulgarian tourist product in order to increase the share of year-round types of tourism in it; expanding and restructuring demand in the market of Bulgarian tourism products by tourists attracting from a new promising sending regions, such as China, India, Japan and Vietnam, specialized products developing for such target market segments as the «third age» tourists and visitors with disabilities and special needs. It is also necessary to improve the territorial management and tourism regulation development in Bulgaria, the system of statistical monitoring and reporting on the tourist activity results. The developed proposals are aimed at increasing the volume and time of tourist services in the resort complexes of the Republic of Bulgaria.