Bulgaria Ski discussion board

You go away for the weekend and all h**l breaks loose.
I know what BG is saying, and I have a lot of sympathy for what you are saying, and I hear what those in favour of Bansko are saying, but surely thats the whole point. The lifts are newer in Bansko thats why the money needs to be spent on Borovets. Whatever we say Borovets has been selected to be the top resort in Bulgaria, by the govt. Borovets or any of the other resorts will suffer in the future if they are not brought up to date and improved. Whereas Bulgaria was the 'cheap' option and we all put up with sub standard lifts/pistes/ eqpt, it was balanced by the overall cost. The trouble now is that there is growing competiton from Romania, slovenia etc to be the 'cheap' option, and a lot of the infrastructure in these places will be newer.
The Samakov area suffers from a lot of unemployment, and whilst its nice for us to reminiss over the quiet uncrowded lifts and slopes, we dont have to live there, and if investing heavily in the area is going to produce more jobs, then thats the way it will go.
The new developments will all be restricted by the fact that the whole area is a national park anyway, and the govt has been careful to insist on ecological input into the development plans. We all know that there will be some 'compromise' over this as there are some vested interests in developing the area, but nearly all the private land is owned by small farmers, and whilst they will be keen to sell, its not large corporations that are making the money here, this will put a large amount of money into the local economy, and has got to be better than the situation now.
Anyway cant see the King/Prime Minister being to keen about too much building in his back yard!!!!!!!!!
As for the future, all the new lifts, the increase in pistes to about 90km and doubling the Bed capacity will drastically change the resort, but I think it will spread out not just be in the area we all know so well at present, most probably encompasing the town of Samakov itself.
Sometimes progress can be two steps forward and one back, but overall its got to be good for the area. This is of course only my opinion and im sure a few of you will wish to air differing views............bring it on.....LOL

I agree with you Sarah in most of the points. It is very nice that there are foreigners like you who have a clear vision and know so well the area and its problems.
You mentionned the unemployement in the region, the problem is much more complex, because of the structure of the population there. The unployment rate is high only in the Roma minority which boost the statistics, and they are unlikely to find a job even with new investments. It is sad, but a reality. There are lots of land abandoned and not used for agriculture for example, the question is why? Thinking about people and solving their problems is not always connected to direct investements. The tourism generaly is very dependent on the economic situation of nations which export tourism, and we can't base the economy of a region on tourism only.

I also want to see Borovetz more modern and reasonably big resort (more runs, more fun) but we should be concerned about the development of the resort not only for winter tourism, but during the whole year. When we think making a huge resort we should take into consideration the fact that snow is diminishing in low altitude, and this is a major concern in France and Swizerland. They talk about the future of low and middle altitude resorts. According to many surveys, winter sports in Europe will be confined to only resorts with skiing area above 3000 meters. There are no so much of them and definitely not in Bulgaria. I hope it is wrong, but the current statistics show the contrary. Borovetz has its biggest part in low and middle altitude.
These are my personal observations on the subject. Have a good beer

yes ok, disagree slightly on a few things spanish costas being a good case of economy based on tourism as majorca, minorca teneriffe, even blackpool but i understand what your saying. i think that the reason you have a lot of undeveloped agricultural land is more due to the type of farming, but hey dont worry along with eu membership comes a great agricultural policy!!!!!!
Becoming economically independant is a long uphill struggle, but me im personally looking forward to what is comfortably predicted to be one of the severest winters for a long time........bring on the snow... all the best bg