Plans for new pistes in Pamporovo were revealed earlier this month.

Pamporovo AD is planning to expand the existing winter resort towards the village of Stoykite. The investment will be worth 13 million leva.

In 2007 a proposal was made for the construction of a three km six-seat lift. According to Bulgarian-language Investor.bg, the project has an approved environmental impact assessment (EIA).

It is planned that the lift will service two new ski runs. The two runs will have a combined length of seven km and are planned to be completed in time for the 2008/09 ski season. Four million leva is being invested in the new pistes. The project is part of plans to connect Tchepelare, Pamporovo and Perelik ski areas. The investors also plan to develop a new villa complex in Stoykite.

During the past four years Pamporovo AD has invested more than 40 million leva in improving the ski infrastructure, increasing bed capacity and expanding the ski slopes in the resort. Currently the lift infrastructure can carry 8600 people an hour.

On February 10, Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik reported CSIF fund had been presented as the official owner of 47 per cent of Pamporovo AD. The fund belongs to Tsvetelina Borisova and is the investor in the Stoykite development.

The new residential complex includes plans for a total area of apartments of about 100 000 sq m, the associated infrastructure and service buildings. The village would be connected to the newly planned ski area by a four-seat lift.

Pamporovo is expecting about 25-30 000 foreign tourists this season. Unlike the 2006/2007 season, this winter was proceeding well, according to Pamporovo AD.

However, last-minute reservations were becoming more important as they accounted for about 10 per cent of total bookings.

Eighty five per cent of the foreign tourists to the resort came from UK and Ireland, while the rest were from Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel and Balkan countries. This year had seen a decrease of about 20 per cent in Russian tourist numbers. They had however been compensated for by visitors from the Balkans. The share of UK tourists had remained the same.

There may soon be a new competitor to Pamporovo. On January 31 the Rhodopi area newspaper Nov Zhivot (New Life) reported that in 2009 it will be possible to ski above the village of Trunkovo in Stambolovo municipality. A one km ski run would be built by the end of 2008. The area is 700 m above sea level and the snow stays on the mountain a long time, the article said. An old mountain hut in the region, owned by the municipality, was being renovated. The hut can sleep 40-50 people.

There is a strong possibility that the plan will be implemented as Stambolovo municipality, together with the Greek association of Evros municipalities, had won a Phare Transboarder Co-operation Programme project, worth 300 000 euro. The project must be competed before the end of 2008, the expiration date of the funding.

If it is built, this ski area would be the only one in East Rhodopi.

Meanwhile, on February 8, WWF Bulgaria said in a media statement that the coalition of 18 non-governmental organisations To Sustain the Nature in Bulgaria had questioned the legality of all Bulgarian ski runs.

The environmentalists requested the Bulgarian Ski Federation and the International Ski Federation not to use any pistes for international competitions that had been created through felling trees in protected areas or were serviced by lifts where this had been done. They also asked this in relation to pistes that had been built without the necessary EIA being completed and those runs that had been built despite the EIA saying that this would have a negative impact on the surroundings. The same applied when it came to runs built in Natura 2000 compatible areas.

During their investigations, the environmentalists said they had discovered that all the pistes in the Bansko ski area in Pirin National Park except Starata Pista (The Old Piste), the Laleto (The Tulip) in Vitosha Nature Park, the new upper part of the run in Bodrost/Kartala ski area in the Rila Mountain and the ski road Muslaenska Puteka in Rila National Park were illegal.

The investigations were based on official information received from state institutions after requested access to information.

The environmentalists also called on all lovers of winter sports not to use the above runs as in this way they would not be directly supporting the financing and development of illegal projects.