Bansko, the largest winter sport resort on the Balkans, officially opened its summer tourist season on May 24.

Many of the hotels in the town in the foothills of Pirin National Park will be closed during the summer months, including the Moura, the Bansko and the Strazhite, which belong to Bansko ski zone concessionaire Ulen.

Others, such as the four-star Glazne Hotel, expect about 10 per cent of their rooms to be filled in June. An average 15 per cent of the capacity of all Bansko hotels will be occupied during the summer months, Kempinski Grand Arena Bansko sales manager Stefan von Scholheim told The Sofia Echo on May 25. Kempinski's bookings, however, are above the average and it has the hightest share of the bookings.

"About half of the hotels are currently closed because the staff went to the seaside," Bansko mayor Alexander Kravarov told a news conference on May 24. "This is not the way to make tourism. The problem is that the business also does not support the tourism enough, as 200 leva salary (for hotel employees) is not enough," Kravarov said.

On May 23, there opened an exhibition by students from Plovdiv Academy for Music, Theatre and Pictorial Arts that took place in the Bansko chitalishte (community centre). It was also part of the Days of Bansko Traditions, which run on May 17 to 25.

A presentation of about 40 hotels followed, including four-, three- and two-star hotels, as well as family hotels that will be working during the summer season 2008.

Activities that can be practised in Bansko and the surrounding area during the summer months include hiking, biking and visiting the mountain lakes. Some hotels, such as the Kempinski Bansko, offer also quad biking, mountain guides, but also organised tours with buses to cultural and religious sites in the region and in Greece.

The town is currently trying to promote itself not only as place for winter sports, but also as an all-year-round destination. A museum of Paisii Hilendarski, a Bulgarian Revival hero, was built in the town, as he was born in Bansko. The other famous Bulgarian born in Bansko, revolutionary poet Nikola Vaptsarov, is commemorated in the other town museum.

There are several cultural events that are scheduled for the summer months in Bansko, Kravarov told The Sofia Echo on May 23. One is the folklore festival Between Three Mountains, which started on May 24. "Afterwards, we will hold a one-week theatre festival in July, to which we will invite the best theatres in the country," he said. Yet another notable event is the jazz festival, which has already become a tradition, as well as the Pirin Folk Festival. Bansko will also host this year's summer biathlon European Championships on August 13 to 17.

The gondola taking tourists to the higher parts of the mountain will only make two daily trips this summer: one in the morning, at 8am, and one in the afternoon, at 4.30pm. The other lifts will not work until the area of the ski runs is "re-cultivated", a Ulen representative told the news conference. During the summer months, when there is not enough snow, the erosion on the ski runs is obvious and does not make the area of ski zone Bansko a pleasant place for tourists. Therefore, the company is planning to plant grass over the ski runs and to re-inforce them; after this it should also be open for visitors in the summer. The Environment and Water Affairs Ministry has approved the plans, Ulen said.

The local municipality had no estimate of how many bookings had already been made by tourists who wished to visit the town in summer 2008, Kravarov said. "According to our data, during the summer season last year, 200 000 people visited Bansko," he said, which is considerably fewer than during the winter season. The data refers to the summer months between May and September.

"I think there is a very big gap in developing Bansko as a summer centre," Kravarov said. "We keep in constant contact with the management of the tourism business and consider that environmental, cultural, and even the religious-historical tourism has to be developed and advertised more seriously," he said. In terms of eco-tourism, the area of the Ulen nature reservation was of particular interest, as were the lakes high in the Pirin Mountains. There are also conditions for mountaineering, but it was more specific and required special training, Kravarov said.

Property developments
"Currently, no hotels are being built, but some hotels are being finished, as we cannot stop them. We stopped issuing new construction permits until the master plans for the areas that have attracted investor interest are drafted," Kravarov said. The town hall will first prepare the master plans for those areas where investor interest is highest, such as the Sveti Ivan, Gourouvitsa and Karantiyata areas, Kravarov said.

"The aim is for construction to be restricted somehow to a certain extent," Kravarov said. The municipal council had to decide whether Bansko would keep growing, Kravarov said. "For now, the new municipal council, and I also hope in the future too, wishes to restrict the amount of construction," he said.

"You must understand that the construction cannot be stopped if there is investor interest. Even during this global crisis happening right now, Bansko is maintaining the prices of its land and is enjoying investor interest. But we have to do so. If we stop construction in Bansko, as I did last year, the investors immediately re-direct to the neighbouring regions. They start building there and again, their tourists start coming to our ski zone, as there is no such other base around Bansko."

Speaking about the number of tourists that visited Bansko in the winter of 2007/08, Kravarov said that the town hall did not yet have information about their exact number, but the figure would be an improvement over the previous season, when about 800 000 people visited Bansko.

"The projects we develop for the infrastructure of the new ski zones - water-mains, sewerage and electricity systems - are totally separate from the town," Kravarov went on to say. "They have their own collectors, which catch the waste water and takes it to a place, where, I hope, in two years' time we will have built a treatment station," Kravarov said. "We have nothing in common with the old sewerage and all new hotels are connected to the new facilities."

Furthermore, Kravarov told The Sofia Echo that the town had a ready project for a dam of 500 000 cu m in the upper part of Bansko, close to the mountain. "When we finish it, we will solve the Bansko problem with water for another 100 years, I guarantee this," Kravarov said. The River Glazne, which currently passes through the town, will be dammed to create a man-made lake that would cover the drinking needs of Bansko and its visitors.

Bansko municipality also has plans to build an airport and the town had an agreement for it to be in the area of Gotse Delchev, which is 30km away from Bansko. New sport facilities will also be built in the town, to incorporate the newly re-constructed sports hall. There is plan for a youth sport base between Bansko and the village of Banya, spreading over five hectares, as well as for a few new stadiums.

According to information provided by Bansko municipality, the town's current bed capacity is 11 822. There are another 2000 to 3000 beds in facilities that have not been registered, such as private homes renting out rooms. The bed capacity grew up from 2007 by about 4000 beds. Currently there are 7000 apartments in the town, Kravarov said.

For more property news, visit propertywisebulgaria.com