Slanchev Bryag may receive city status

Feb 3, 2006 - Dnevnik

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Bulgarian sea resort Slanchev Bryag will have to tweak its tourist product if it is granted the status of a city, Stoyan Lazarov, deputy chairman of the Union of Owners of Slanchev Bryag Properties, told a round-table discussion on Thursday.

In April, the union and the Nesebar municipality, where the resort is located, intend to move to the municipal council a proposal to grant Slanchev Bryag the status of a city and stake it off as a separate mayoralty. The procedure could take up to 18 months to complete. The resort already meets the city status requirement of 1,000 permanent residents.

At the moment, Slanchev Bryag is exclusively a summer resort and does not have the infrastructure for year-round tourism like conference rooms, parking lots and indoor swimming pools, said Lazarov. There is also no housing capacity for the service staff that a year-round operation as a tourist destination would require.

The increase in the bed capacity of the resort has far outstripped that of tourist visits. The number of hotel beds has risen tenfold in the past 8 years while that of holiday-makers is up only 50%.

Lazarov pointed to sea resort Albena as a good example how to grow at a measured and sustainable pace while creating a professionally packaged, high-quality tourist product. In contrast, Slanchev Bryag broke all the rules and expanded haphazardly and ski resorts Bansko and Pamporovo look set to repeat that mistake, said Lazarov.