Bulgaria may realize an annual turnover of 8-10 billion euro from tourism, said the chairman of the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association / BHRA / Blagoi Ragin.

The condition to achieve this result is the economically successful absorption of EU funds for infrastructure, granting airports on concessions and better promoting of the country as a tourist destination, said Ragin to the participants at the round table dedicated to the outlook in front of tourism industry. The forum is organized by the association on the occasion of 15 years since the establishment of BHRA.

Ragin said that Bulgaria had lost because of the visa regime with the neighboring countries 75 percent of the market in Serbia, Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, and the growth of the market with the partners from the EU was 30 percent.

Over the past 15 years in Bulgarian tourism have been invested more than 16 billion euro and in the industry are employed nearly 360 000 families, said Ragin. Tourism is with the largest revenue in GDP of the country. According to Ragin the problem in front of Bulgarian tourism is not how to increase available lodging, but how to handle excessive offering. Other problems are poor infrastructure and lack of qualified personnel.

According to the president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association Bernd Gayer in the European tourism industry there are 1.6 million enterprises, most of them are SMEs. 8.4 million people are employed in the sector. The annual added value which the industry produces is 154 billion euros.