Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hi All,

From the sounds of it Borovets and Borosport have got even worse this year. My wife and I own a place in Borovets and for the first time in five years we decided to give our yearly trip to Borovets over New Years a miss, good job really due to the lack of snow.

We got back from a Club Med (All-inclusive) holiday to St Moritz (Switzerland) for £950 inc VAT. St Moritz was the home of alpine skiing and was amazing value and skiing. We didn't spend another penny other than our booking. All food, drink, ski school, lift pass etc was included. The holiday was truly 10 out of 10 and blew hotel Samkov out of the water; a friend that came with us has stayed at Samkov.

We are going to Cervinia (Italy) for £850 each in 7 weeks also with Club Med and I hate to say that we will not be returning to Bulgaria until Borosports and Borovets sort it out!!!

We learnt to ski in Borovets, we feel in love with the people and the place so much we bought a place. Unfortunately in the 5 years we have been going to Borovets things have gone downhill.

What is the answer as I would love Borovets to become great once again? Is Borovets just hoping that the EU will bail them out with a big injection of cash? Borovets has huge potential in the Rila mountains and with a bit off money spent on it Borovets could at least rival some of the smaller French resorts. We did not queue once in St Moritz and they must have had 50 cable cars.

I would like to hear other peoples thoughts on this.

Del,

Surely the problems stem from the mountain not being high enough, therefore no amount of cash will help.

A ski resort can only grow business if it has ample amounts of snow. Call it global warming etc, but at the end of the day people are not going to part with hard earned cash for a ski holiday, if they are not guaranteed snow to ski upon.

I predict hard times ahead for both Borovets & Pamporovo. Snow conditions have been poor for the past two seasons in general, particularly around the 'peak periods'. I think people will be very slow to book these resorts in the future, regardless of what price this resort is pitched at.

Regarding solutions......Raise the mountain by about 1000 feet!!!

what to 3500m where do you go skiing?? Boro is higher than the average resort, and snow coverage has been very good over the last few years, just because this years been bad doesnt make it down and out. Bansko and Boro are nearly identical height wise, except the main base Borovets is about 400m higher than bansko, thats why you can skii outside the main hotels.

The problem is more to do with Borosport , a bit like ManU actually, the owners are just intent on taking money out rather than really investing in the resort

Hello Fraser,

3500M??? Where did you go to school??

1000 feet= 304.8 metres, which would bring Borvets & Bansko upto 2900M

I also meant to include Bansko in my prediction of hard times. They also have struggled with snow conditions particularly around peak times.

If you compare the 3 main bulgarian resorts to Livigno, (resort at 1810m, and highest run at nearly 3000m) Livigno doesnt seem to struggle as much with snow conditions, and presumably this relates to the height of the mountain?

I understand your point in resort management, but it must be hard to manage snow that isnt there?

I see your point about the the mountains not being high enough. The highest in St Moritz was 3300m. Surely if they opened up more of the Rila mountains there would be plenty of snow. Is all they would need to do is put a cable car between peaks, probably starting at the top of the gondola (although that needs replacing too).

From memory they were going to put in something from the top of the chair lift outside Samkov to the top of the gondola to join the peaks. What happened to that?

Fiona, I take it you were joking about the lift down to Samokov being finished? Every year I go I expect improvements and is all they seem to do is replace a poma with a chair lift or possibly link two runs. The lift from Samokov started 2 years ago and every year I see very little progress. Apparently some government official run of with the money :-)

A lot of you are talking about height of the mountains when i think you may actually mean to refer to how far South the resorts in BG are compared to lots of other ski resorts?

There are resorts in places that are at 1000m or less, but they have plenty of snow (as it never gets above zero c)!

Borovets are a long way behind where i was hoping they'd be by now and as many of you say, if they don't stop taking money out of the resort and start putting something back in, then they are doomed.

Sorry for being a doom monger!

Perhaps , more snow cannons would help the situation . Thank godness that Yastrabet 2 and 3 are now cannoned, otherwise there would have been even further limited skiing. Resorts like Madessimo in Italy have 100% cannoned slopes, its about investment and infrastructure, if you want to guarantee tourists are happy year after year. I know its still a cheap ski holiday, however piste mamagement and invest has been dreadful over the last 2-3 years, its such a shame, as the loacl people depend on the resort for a major part of their income.

Totally agree Jo, they were very wise installing cannons on Yastrebets and yes, local people do very much depend on the resort for income along with many other Bulgarian people that come to work in Boro from Varna and the likes.

You know, Borovets reminds me of a ski resort in NZ called Turoa. Owned by an Australian company in (Melbourne??) who sucked the life out of it by not re-investing. All the money just continued to get transfered to corporate management bank accounts in Australia.
The resort just went down hill big time so the NZ government stepped in once the lease expired and awarded the new lease back to a NZ based company (Alpine lifts??). The resort has now had major work implemented over the last 2 seasons and is back on track etc etc.

This is what Borovets needs.......big time.......but everyone knows who runs Borovets, so removing them would be a difficult task.

When the snow falls, Borovets has some great skiing, on and off piste........kept me and my hubby happy for a few seasons! and we never had a problem meeting nice Bulgarians (mainly from Sofia) to ski with.



Fiona