[size=55:j9ec0rvq]Sofia echo

Bulgaria starts ‘eye in the sky’ checks of Black Sea beaches

Bulgarian authorities started aerial inspections of Black Sea beaches on August 8, using satellites and other forms of eye-in-the-sky surveillance of whether beaches held under concession are being managed according to contract agreements – and whether previous violations have been addressed.

Earlier inspections established nearly 600 violations, Bulgarian National Television said.

The aerial survey will establish how many umbrellas there are on beaches and whether the zones allocated for free-of-charge admission are in compliance with the rules.

Representatives of the Regional Development Ministry together with six other state institutions will conduct unannounced spot checks throughout August.

About a third of Bulgaria’s Black Sea beaches are held under concessions, a third are rented and the rest are unguarded.

Meanwhile, two new wings of a hotel in Sunny Beach are being closed on the orders of the Consumer Protection Commission, as is one of the restaurants at the hotel, because they lack appropriate legal documentation.

In recent days, the National Revenue Agency (NRA), the Chief Labour Inspectorate, the Consumer Protection Commission and the Food Safety Agency have been carrying out inspections at Black Sea resorts.

The inspections found a large number of cases of violations of labour laws, including employees without labour contracts, and bartenders and waiting staff working hours well in excess of those legally agreed to.

There were several cases of alcohol and food being sold without any documentation, a media statement said.

The NRA said in a media statement that there were night clubs in Sunny Beach that were reporting turnovers three times smaller than the real sums.

On August 8, television station bTV said that there had been dozens of accidents on beaches in Varna and nearby resorts during the past weekend.

Incidents included one on August 6 in which an eight-year-old child had been saved from drowning, but after the rescue, medical staff had been unable to locate his parents.

Other cases involved rescues of people rescued from drowning after being caught up in strong currents.
In separate cases, two pregnant women, one aged 33 and the other 28, were given medical treatment after collapsing on beaches in Varna.

Eyes also were on progress or otherwise in tourist numbers during this year’s Bulgarian Black Sea summer tourism season.

Speaking to local news agency Focus, Roumen Draganov, head of the Institute for Analysis and Assessment of Tourism, said that up to now, forecasts for improved numbers of tourists at the Black Sea this summer were being met.

The number of tourists by the beginning of August was up by 10 per cent "
and we even expect that growth will reach 14 per cent,"
Draganov was quoted as saying.

The larges increase was in tourists from Russia, he said. The German market was second, followed by Slovakia.

He said that negative publicity following cases of visiting Russian children getting food poisoning, the death by drowning of a German teenager in a Varna hotel pool, cases of drunken tourists falling off hotel balconies and reports about the sale of expired food, along with cases of large numbers of employees in Varna and Bourgas working illegally, had "
compromised"
Bulgaria’s tourism.

He hit out at the central Government for seeking to shift responsibility for such issues from the Ministry of Tourism to municipalities and NGOs, while in turn the municipalities sought to shift responsibility to the national Government.

The negative media reports this season had led to the outflow of about 20 000 tourists this season, according to Draganov.

The average occupancy of bed capacity along the Black Sea coast was, he said, low.

"
It will continue running to about 30 per cent, which indicates that great part of the Bulgarian tourism is not working and will stay empty on annual terms in terms of bed capacity.

"
Meanwhile, the discrediting of the good name of Bulgarian hotel-keepers, tour operators, restaurant-keepers, and people working in the sector in general, strikes a serious blow to the good name of Bulgarian tourism and it will suffer in the long run,"
said Draganov, who called for urgency in finalising and implementing reform legislation on the tourism industry.