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Bulgaria Said to Offer Best-Value Summer Tourism Packages in EU

Bulgaria offers the best prices for vacations in the EU this summer, according to Blagoy Ragin, head of the Bulgarian Association of Restaurant and Hotel Owners.

The Bulgarian tourist business expects at least 10% more foreign tourists in 2011 compared with 2010, Ragin told the Cross news agency.

The head of the Restaurant and Hotel Owners' Association stressed that Bulgaria's tourist sector is looking forward to the completion of the Trakiya Highway (expected in 2012) – connecting Sofia with the southern Black Sea coast.

In his words, the Trakiya Highway will increase substantially the number of tourists from Central European countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland visiting the Bulgarian seaside.

Ragin expressed concern that the citizens of neighbouring countries have unfair difficulties to enjoying a Black Sea vacation in Bulgaria.

He said that Bulgaria "
loses"
200 000 Kosovo tourists per year because of the slow and expensive process for obtaining a Bulgarian tourist visa.