Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Errr, Gareth, Bansko does not benefit from any payment from the FIS nor Eurosport, in fact the event last season cost Ulen... (various amounts bounded about...)
What the benefit is was the exposure, world wide, and to this end it was a great success, especially considering the snow at the time of the event, made even more of a spectacle compared to the World Champs the previous week in Garmish, a single piste made entirely of artificial snow....
Ulen wish to invest money, visitor numbers are up year on year, 6.5% last season (a poor season) and 10% the season before..
Plans for expansion are in place but permissions have to be sought, it is a National Park, so it will take time. Lobbying of members of the BG parliament is in motion, support is widespread, but so is the support for the ecologists and those who wish no development at all. Some of this comes from outside of BG, the `Greens' are big in Europe and carry a voice in Brussels, so BG must tread carefully...
The profit reported last season was in the region of 65 million Euro, around 30% is re-invested in the way of infrastructure (cannons, groundworks, land purchase, lifts, etc) and the rest is to placate investors in the form of share dividends...
Lets look on the positive side, improvements will happen this season (there has been a helicopter up the mountain for 2 weeks now ??), Bansko is looking more finished with developments being completed (not all i will add), new retail blocks appearing on the main street where there was waste ground, new nightclub (Friendly Bar people), new bars and Mehanas, another new supermarket, more tarmac roads etc etc... This is against the trend in the rest of Europe where ski resorts are reporting less tourists, investment shelved or put back to later dates and an overpowering fear for the future..
Yes, things could be better and more organised here, but the improvements in Ulens PR are noticeable and fingers crossed this will continue...

Weve been here before, the upgrade to a six pack, the new four seater at the top were at one time not going to happen, but they did, it would seem that there are still ways to get round these problems, especially as the share holders are probably involved in the government or hold a certain amount of sway if you know what I mean!!. Bansko will continue to improve so long as there is a return for the shareholders, we should remember that to us its our sport, but to Ulen its a business and they will ensure they keep the infrastructure in a state that generates the visitor numbers to make a respectable profit in the future.

Don

The point is Ulen dont really have a choice but to continually invest in Capital works. Else existing Assets will wear out/break/out of date etc.

So they have to do the continual replacement of assets but then they als need to invest in the future. Bansko have been lucky with Eurosport and no doubt that will draw in new tourists either new to skiing or take them from a different resort elsewhere either in Bulgaria or worldwide.

One issue Ive noticed is that Red12 is very hit & miss and all of 2011 was out of action. So even though Bansko officially has 70km well for 2011 it had 70km less length of red 12. It is very good to see that they have resolved this issue by installing snow cannons and moving the stream and all the tree stumps in the piste.
That will make the mountain Bigger as is and will make the pistes less crowded which is certainly a good thing.


They have made a very good upgrade at base station very impressive (but needed).
The 6 man initial chair lift resolves the bottle neck at the base station which was a problem (a very good upgrade.
The 4 man new chair lift which replaced the T bar is yet another great upgrade as that was very hard on the legs and slow and also made many opt to go further down the mountain to the base station bottleneck. So last years improvements are very good and have been a material improvement to the skiing experiance.

This year red 12 problems fixed for good will be yet another very good upgrade.

I hope they manage to get the other mountain open as again there are red runs there which require no impact to the Green party instead only avelanche avoidance equipment is required. Instantly it makes the mountain bigger and makes the existing mountain less crowded.
All which will improve the skiing experiance for all.

The other bottleneck is peak week early morning at the Gondela queue. Frankly a new gondela is goingto be a vest investment and really its only for 1-2 weeks out of what 16-18?? I'd say that is less important currently.

Much further down the line has to be to open up the mountain to the left - it has like a glacier at the top that would be a great a huge expanse of additional skiing area which could be linked to the current mountain.


Do that by 2015 and Bansko is going to be rocking.

Your getting it Gareth, slowly slowly catchy monkey...
The main problem with Ulen advertising its works is that many involve areas that are sensitive, forest clearance and groundworks are high on the agenda in a ski area, and its this that involves court actions bought by environmental groups. To proceed in secret seems underhand but basically its the only way things will get done without interruption...
We are all aware of the potential skiing on the mountain, and expansion as you state is paramount in any ski business, but with the present restrictions only certain things can be done, come 2013 and the rezoning of many areas on the mountain perhaps then we will see quicker development, and maybe the much rumored 2nd gondola, which hopefully will go to Shilligarnika, a much more logical choice